When a Manhattan CEO logged onto her company’s Instagram account last February and saw a nude photo of herself, she panicked.
The 39-year-old exec hastily deleted it, but within moments, the image was re-posted. Then it was on her company’s website and soon, her personal Facebook page.
Over the next month and a half, no matter how many times she changed her passwords, nude photos of her began popping up on her other social media accounts and even made it onto her company’s Twitter page.
“I’m a single mom living in New York City. I’m a business owner. What did they want from me? What’s next?’’ the woman, who asked not to be identified, told The Post.
It turned out that the accused culprit was the woman’s 49-year-old ex-boyfriend, Ross Glick — and thanks to New York City’s new “revenge porn” law, the former beau was arrested.
Glick, busted by NYPD Detective Denis McCarthy, whom the woman calls her hero, was charged with unlawful use of a computer and unlawfully posting the lewd images. He ended up pleading guilty to second-degree harassment, a violation, and paid a fine.
“We really are very happy that the justice system is taking things seriously for the first time … so many [victims] are able to get some protection and some relief because of the fact we passed this law,” said City Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Queens), the 2017 legislation’s sponsor.
Still, passage of the city law — which makes the dissemination of a nude image without a person’s consent a crime in the five boroughs — is bittersweet.
In New York state, aside from the five boroughs and Suffolk County, LI, authorities’ hands are tied when it comes to prosecuting revenge-porn perpetrators.
Despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s renewed promise in his 2019 State of the State address to prioritize the bill’s passage, New York is still one of nine states in the country that allows non-consensual photography, after its legislature defeated the bill — five times.
“Given that so many cases have been happening in the city, I think it shines a light that we finally need to get something done in Albany, and we’re optimistic with the new Democratic Senate, things will be different this year,” said Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside), who originally created the state bill.
“The city of New York has 9 million people, and the state has nearly 20 million people. If you look at it through those numbers, you can get a guess of how many criminal cases we’ll see.”
The city law, barely a year old, has already helped at least 143 victims hold their abusers accountable in some ways.
Fifty-three cases involving the crime were heard in Manhattan courts, 39 in the Bronx, 28 in Brooklyn, 22 in Queens and one on Staten Island as of the end of December.
The victims’ stories carry a recurring theme: intimate images splashed across social media and sent to families and employers, often just one of the weapons in a domestic abuser’s arsenal used to coerce victims into staying in relationships gone horribly wrong.
When a 24-year-old college student tried to break up with her longtime boyfriend, Mordechai Salem, last April, he began calling and texting her dozens of times, the woman told The Post.
When the young woman didn’t return his calls, he sent a video of the two of them having sex to her mother and threatened to post it to a porn website with her social media profile, she said in court papers.
“That was the worst moment of my life. I thought I was going to kill myself,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “It felt like any hope I had for my future was gone.”
The woman says she didn’t realize non-consensual photography was illegal until her best friend, who had a similar experience, told her about the city’s new law and encouraged her to go to the cops.
‘I thought I was going to kill myself. It felt like any hope I had for my future was gone.’
While police at Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct gave her the “runaround” at first, telling her to go to family court and forcing her to play the sex video for desk officers, a detective overheard her story when she came back a second time and said he’d take the case, the woman said.
“We strongly encourage all victims to come forward with any allegation of crime and strive to continually create a safe environment where we can help these victims feel comfortable telling their stories, ensuring that all complaints are fully investigated,’’ an NYPD spokeswoman told The Post.
That night, Salem was arrested and charged with raps including unlawful disclosure of the photos, aggravated harassment, coercion and stalking. He pleaded down to third-degree stalking and will be sentenced April 30.
While the woman is grateful that her case went to court, nearly a year later, she and her family are still suffering, she says.
“To this day, I still keep my ringtone off because the sound of my phone ringing reminds me of his obsessive phone calls at that time,’’ she said. “My little sister still hides when someone knocks on our front door.”
And the list goes on.
On March 4 last year, Kendel Gadsden, 23, called his victim 67 times in Brooklyn and warned, “If you don’t meet up with me, you will regret it,” according to a criminal complaint.
Three days later, he posted a picture of the victim’s “genitalia onto … Instagram, Twitter and Facebook,” court records say.
He was slapped with 29 charges including aggravated harassment and unlawful disclosure of an intimate image, pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal contempt and was sentenced to one to three years behind bars.
In August, Steven Sterling, 50, of the Bronx posted a video of him and his ex-girlfriend having sex on Tumblr and another photo that showed her breasts and face, court papers say.
“Karma takes too long, I want revenge,” Sterling told the woman, adding he was “trying to ruin” her “whole life,” the records state.
Sterling was charged for posting the images, and the case is pending. He declined comment to The Post.
In November, Shamsu Chowdhury, 56, continuously posted naked photos of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook for her family to see and told her, “I am going to keep posting these pictures for the rest of my life. I wont [sic] stop until you come back,” according to police and court records.
He was charged for threatening to post intimate images. His case is pending. He wouldn’t talk to The Post.
Zayquaun Stewart, 20, first sent a text to his victim and her parents in August saying he planned to kill her, according to a criminal complaint.
“You burying ur [sic] daughter next. Next time your daughter gonna know not to hurt people’s feelings,” Stewart wrote to the victim’s parents on Facebook, the records allege.
He then sent the family a picture of a gun and about two weeks later, posted a video of the pair having sex, according to the documents.
Stewart was charged with aggravated harassment and for unlawfully disclosing the images. He pleaded to harassment in the second degree, a violation, and was given a conditional discharge with a full order of protection for the victim.
Shawn Powers, who flipped off The Post during a recent court date, repeatedly posted images of his ex-girlfriend across social media and violated an order of protection she had against him. He was charged for disclosing the pictures, criminal contempt and related offenses and pleaded guilty to those charges.
If he completes substance-abuse and mental-health treatment and vocational or educational training and maintains full-time employment, he can re-plead in one year to just criminal contempt.
The good news is that more than 31 such non-consensual photography cases have reached dispositions in city courts through the beginning of January, victims and advocates say.
What’s difficult to accept is the conviction rate: Twenty-one cases were pleaded down to violations or adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, meaning the charge will be tossed if the defendant stays out of trouble.
Violations are not crimes and do not appear on criminal records.
Many defendants were given conditional discharges, and some were ordered to complete community service as punishment.
While Lancman acknowledges that the vast majority of the criminal cases result in pleas, he said convictions are important because of the deterrence factor.
“I’m confident if people start to see and understand that engaging in revenge porn will get you convicted of revenge porn, then we can de-normalize this conduct. … There’s more value than usual to require people to plead guilty to the actual offense,” Lancman said.
Meanwhile, in Albany, it’s Groundhog Day again for the Assembly’s Braunstein.
He is embarking on his sixth attempt to pass the related statewide bill he’s been pushing since 2013.
Six years ago, only New Jersey and California had laws against non-consensual photography. Since then, 38 states have passed similar bills.
On the final day of the legislative session last year, New York came the closest it ever has to passing the bill before it was squashed in the eleventh hour by Google lobbyists and the Internet Association, which reps Google and other Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter.
The main qualm that Big Tech has with the state bill involves provisions that can hold websites liable for non-consensual photography posted to their platforms.
The city law specifically excludes websites from being held accountable.
John Olsen, a regional director for the Internet Association, said in a statement that IA’s members are against non-consensual photography but they should be allowed to police their own platforms and not be liable for non-consensual photography.
Braunstein said the opposing provision wouldn’t be necessary if these platforms were policed properly and it was easy for victims to get their images removed.
Carrie Goldberg, a Brooklyn-based lawyer who specializes in sexual-privacy violations, said Google has refused to remove rape videos depicting her clients because the tech giant claims they too closely resembled commercial porn. Google has not denied the assertion.
Braunstein said he expects his bill to go before both houses for a floor vote before April, but Goldberg is still wary.
“Maybe six time’s the charm,” she said. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we have a new set of lawmakers that aren’t going to crumble to pressure from what’s the most omniscient and omnipotent industry there is: the tech industry.”
Additional reporting by Rebecca Rosenberg