Woman awarded $1.2 billion in revenge porn lawsuit against ex-boyfriend

A Texas woman who dated a man in Chicago has been awarded $1.2 billion in damages, after a jury determined she was a victim of revenge porn.

The woman – identified in her lawsuit only as D.L. – said she started dating Marques Jamal Jackson in 2016, and the two moved to Chicago for Jackson's job.

Her lawsuit claimed that, after they broke up in 2021, Jackson posted intimate images of her – obtained while they were dating – onto social media platforms and adult websites "with the intent to embarrass, harass, torment, humiliate, and publicly shame" her.  

Court documents show that one of Jackson's final messages to D.L. read, "You will spend the rest of your life trying and failing to wipe yourself off the internet. Everyone you ever meet will hear the story and go looking."

The lawsuit also accused Jackson of tapping into her mother's home security system to spy on D.L. after the two broke up, as well as sending links to her friends and family to sites where intimate images of her had been uploaded. Jackson was told he no longer had access to the home security system after the breakup, according to the lawsuit. 

Earlier this month, a Texas jury awarded her $1.2 billion in damages. Her attorney said it's unlikely she'll be able to collect that money, but added the verdict will raise awareness of the epidemic of revenge porn. 

"We are grateful the jury took a strong stand against the defendant's abhorrent behavior and against imaged-based sexual abuse. While a judgment in this case is unlikely to be recovered, the compensatory verdict gives D.L. back her good name," attorney Bradford Gilde said in a statement. "The punitive verdict also is the jury's plea to raise awareness of this tech-fueled national epidemic. We will forever admire D.L.'s courage in fighting back. We hope the staggering amount of this verdict sends a message of deterrence and prevents others from this engaging in this despicable activity."

Jackson, who was also accused of tapping D.L.'s bank account to pay his rent and other bills, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.