“Annmarie, if you can [change the laws], it would make my job a lot easier.”
A state trooper spoke these words to Annmarie Chiarini, a college teacher seeking help to remove revenge porn from the Internet. Little did that trooper know that indeed changing the law is exactly what Annmarie would do. The video, posted by an ex-boyfriend, had been viewed over 3,000 times. The video’s title: HOT FOR TEACHER? COME AND GET IT.
Her ex auctioned a CD of 88 naked images of her, sending links to her family, friends, her kids’ babysitter, and colleagues, urging them to bid. When she begged him to stop, he responded “I will destroy you.” And the police’s response? “There is nothing I can do. No crime has been committed.”
In Annmarie’s courageous first person account in The Guardian, she doesn’t blame the state trooper, who was, she says, “the first law enforcement official to show genuine kindness and compassion.” His paralysis is part of a systemic problem. So she is going to change the system.
Annemarie joins our fight for revenge porn to be made a crime in all 50 states. And it looks like this just might happen in her home state of Maryland–a revenge porn bill was drafted and introduced into the 2014 legislative session. We just hope legislators vote the right way, and prevent further victimization.