A New Jersey woman was awarded $8.7 million from a man who stole intimate photos off her phone and posted them online.
She was one of several victims of Tyler Jones, 33, who for years had been skimming photos off women’s phones without their knowledge or consent. They would not find out until being notified by authorities, or by a friend who spotted the images.
That’s what happened to a woman in New Jersey’s Gloucester County, NJ Advance Media reported. Jones, of Philadelphia, had gotten access to her phone while dating her close friend and sent private photos to himself. He then posted the images to sites like 4Chan, Discord and Telegram, and sent them to her friends via a disguised Instagram account.
The woman had no idea until more than a year later, when one of the recipients alerted her in late 2023 that an unknown Instagram account had offered to share her nude photos. The woman then found hundreds of posts containing identifying information, including her name, making her a potential open target for online harassment, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The woman filed a police report and hired an attorney, according to the complaint obtained by NJ Advance Media. She filed a civil lawsuit in August 2024 after her lawyers mined websites and internet service provider data to unearth nude photos of not only her, but also at least seven other people going back to 2013, her suit said.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Edward Kiel held Jones liable for violating federal and state laws against the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, and for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy, NJ Advance Media reported. The nearly $9 million he awarded to the woman includes $5 million in punitive damages.
That investigation also led to criminal charges against Jones in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office charged him on July 8 with dozens of offenses, ranging from felony counts of unlawful use of a computer and unlawful duplication, to misdemeanor invasion of privacy and unlawful dissemination. He was arraigned and held on $350,000 bail.
