Protect Your Privacy
Video Transcript: Using cease and desist letters in Oklahoma to stop revenge porn. I am James Wirth. I’m a Tulsa attorney and the topics that we’re dealing with today involve cease and desist letters, specifically this one deals with revenge porn.
That is where somebody against your wishes is posting explicit images or videos of you online, obviously without your permission, usually with the intention of causing damage to you or trying to extort something out of you. Well, that is a legal in the state of Oklahoma.
There is a law specifically that came into effect, I believe it was in 2016, regarding that. It can be found in Title 22, section 1040.13B, and it provides it is a misdemeanor for a first offense if you are not trying to extort. If you are trying to extort, then it is a felony with up to four years in prison for a first offense, up to 10 years in prison and registration on the sex offender registry for a second offense. So that is illegal activity.
Additionally, it is violative of Oklahoma’s common law related to privacy, and a civil suit could be maintained for that public disclosure of private facts, and you can sue for damages and also to bring that content down. But the problem with both those things, filing a police report, going with law enforcement, they can take some time before charges are filed.
Additionally same with a civil lawsuit. You get petition drafted up, you file it with the court, you serve, and they got 20 days to respond. That’s a long time for content to be online. So most of the time we want to act more quickly, and sometimes we can do it faster and cheaper by sending a cease and desist letter explaining the gravity of the situation.
So normally you do that through a law office. You want to put it on the formal letterhead signed by an attorney. You want to have it served by certified mail or if you want it even faster, and send a bigger message serve it by a process server in person. And then that way they are on notice. You lay out what they have done, how it violates the law, and what the potential consequences are if they do not cease and desist that activity.
That can be done in a matter of perhaps 24 hours as opposed to days, perhaps weeks for civil litigation. Gets them on notice of the violation, demands that they bring the content down, and the faster it comes down, the less damage it is to the person who has been violated in that way.
So cease and desist letter can be a good tool in dealing with revenge porn. It also sets up better for if you do have to file a lawsuit or if criminal charges are going to be pursued at a later time to note that they were on notice of this and they failed and refused to bring it down. That would indicate more so that their actions were malicious and they should be punished. So that’s how a cease desist letter can be used under these circumstances.
If you are dealing with something like that, you’re going to want to act quick, but you’re going to want to talk to an attorney confidentially about your specific information to see what the best course of action is for you. To speak with an Oklahoma cease and desist lawyer at my office, you go online to makelaweasy.com.
