A Chicago, Illinois, man was sentenced to five years in prison by a D.C. court on Friday for stalking and publishing graphic images of a woman, and for stalking and threatening witnesses of the crimes.
Kyle Alexander Jackson, 25, pleaded guilty in August to two counts of first-degree unlawful publication, one count of unlawful disclosure, two counts of stalking and one count of felony threats.
“Kyle Jackson subjected the primary victim in this case — his ex-girlfriend — to years of torment,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves in a press release. “This case demonstrates the importance of the law that expressly prohibits such unlawful publication of explicit photos without consent. Now Kyle Jackson is being held accountable for his reprehensible acts.”
Jackson and the victim dated several years ago while students at a college in D.C. After they broke up in 2018, Jackson dispersed sexually explicit images of the victim to other individuals, prompting a Title IX investigation at the university, according to case evidence.
His behavior escalated after he created multiple fake GroupMe accounts in 2019, which he used to post the victim’s images. He often impersonated the victim as well, soliciting others to contact her on social media.
Through 2021, Jackson continued to post the images on GroupMe, Kik and other platforms. He would often send texts to the victim from TextNow numbers, harassing her and pretending to be others who had seen the images on the internet.
At one point in 2021, Jackson mailed the sexually explicit images to the victim’s employer.
Under D.C. law, publishing sexually explicit photos of someone without their knowledge or consent is illegal and requires a minimum three-year sentence.
While the criminal case against Jackson was pending, he began to harass potential witnesses in the case, sending numerous harassing emails, many containing racist and sexist slurs. Jackson also used the witnesses’ professional email addresses and contacted their co-workers.
The conduct eventually escalated to include violent threats of sexual assault and murder. Jackson was arrested in April 2022.
Upon completion of his five-year prison term, Jackson will be placed on three years of supervised release, where he will be required to stay away from the victims and barred from talking about them on social media.
Revenge porn, such as in cases like this, is considered an act of extortion and non-consensual pornography. The “Criminalization of Non-Consensual Pornography Act of 2014” D.C. law codifies the offense of unlawful publication and prohibits the publication or disclosure of explicit photos without the consent of the person depicted in them, even if the photos were taken or given consensually.
