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Revenge Porn Suspect Arrested After Victim's Coworkers Found Sex Video Online, Police Say
Police are looking for possible additional victims of a man who is accused of uploading pornographic videos of women to the Internet without their knowledge or consent. Sergio Ortiz, 32, has been charged with uploading a video of himself and an unidentified woman having sex to a porn site. The pair met on a dating site and eventually had consensual sex, during which Ortiz took video. According to a release from the LAPD, the woman was reluctant about the video in the first place, and afterwards, asked him to delete it. Ortiz allegedly decided he'd rather upload it to the Internet than respect her wishes.
The victim was not made aware of this until a coworker who had seen the video approached her about it. According to police, this has caused her extreme distress and humiliation at work.
During the course of their investigation, authorities learned that Ortiz has also uploaded images of other women. Police do not know if these women consented to their videos and pictures being uploaded or not, but any person who thinks they might be a victim is encouraged to contact authorities.
Governor Jerry Brown signed the Revenge Porn bill into law in the state of California in October of 2013, making it illegal to post any explicit videos or images of a person online without their consent. The first person sentenced under this new law was Noe Iniguez, who was found guilty of uploading nude photos of his ex to her employer's Facebook page. In December of 2014, he was sentenced to a year in jail, mandatory counseling, 36 months of probation and to stay away from his ex. Kevin Bollaert, of San Diego, was convicted of 27 felony charges for his role in hosting a revenge porn website that contained over 10,000 images of women, plus their names, photo numbers, locations and social media profiles. Hunter Moore, another revenge porn site operator, pleaded guilty to numerous federal charges in February of 2015. Cesar Mauricio Estrada-Davila of Rosemead was arrested in August of 2015 for allegedly pretending to be a modeling agent in order to trick 21 young girls between the ages of 12 and 17 into sending him revealing photos.
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Anyone with information should contact West Valley Division Detective Navarro or Detective Toosbuy, West Valley Sex Crimes Unit, at (818) 374-7713 or (818) 374-7718. Anonymous tips can be submitted to LA Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
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