Marquette man arraigned for ‘revenge porn’

Twenty-year-old Kenneth Beadling appeared in 96th District Court Thursday morning for his arraignment. He pleaded not guilty to unlawful posting of a message. Beadling is free on $1,000 bond.

The Marquette Police accuse him of posting nude pictures of his ex-girlfriend on a revenge-oriented website without her permission to retaliate against her for ending their relationship.

The concept is called ‘revenge porn’. Michigan is one of several states with either recent laws against it or older laws that are being used to prosecute it.

“It is a two-year felony and/or a $5,000 fine for posting a message on the Internet without the consent of another party,” Marquette Police Det. Sgt. Mike Kohler said.

The Associated Press, the American Bar Association Journal and U.S. News & World Report have all run stories on revenge porn within the last three weeks. It’s not clear yet if Beadling or his ex-girlfriend took the photos, but Det. Sgt. Kohler says in cases like this, the victim will usually have taken them.

“That’s the biggest thing that we see is the ‘selfies’, they call them, where someone takes a picture of themselves and then they either text-message it to another or put it up on a social network,” he said.

Support sites like Women Against Revenge Porn have sprung up online in the last several years so that victims can help themselves, but it’s not easy to close Pandora’s box once it’s been opened.

“A lot of these places that have these sites or host these sites are in other countries,” Kohler said. “And there is no guarantee that you will ever be able to get that picture off that site.”

Kenneth Beadling has his District Court preliminary exam scheduled for December 5th. Judge Roger Kangas has assigned Marquette attorney Derek Swajanen to serve as his court–appointed counsel.