People who share so-called revenge porn, or the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, will soon be subject to civil litigation and up to a year in jail after a bill on the practice was signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo Tuesday.

The new law will take effect in two months, after which victims of “revenge porn” will also be able to seek a court-ordered injunction to have their images removed from a website.

“Our laws have not kept pace with technology and how abusers can use it to harass, intimidate and humiliate intimate partners,” Cuomo said. “By criminalizing the publication of revenge porn, we are empowering victims of this heinous act to take action against their abusers and showing them a path to justice.”

The new law empowers victims and prosecutors to seek both criminal and civil recourse against perpetrators of “revenge porn.” The new crime will be a class A misdemeanor, which carries up to a year in jail under the state's penal code.

The law specifically defines “revenge porn” as the unlawful dissemination or publication of an intimate image when done with the intent to cause harm to the emotional, financial, and physical welfare of another person and when the image was created with a reasonable expectation that it would remain private.

That will give prosecutors a new tool to bring charges of “revenge porn” against perpetrators, but that task won't be without its limits. They'll have to prove the defendant's intent to cause harm to the victim in the ways defined by the bill.

They'll also have to show that the victim wanted the intimate image or video to remain private, and that the perpetrator knew or reasonably should have known that.

The legislation has been carried by Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, D-Queens, for the last several years. It had mixed results in the state Assembly during that time, until Democrats coalesced around the measure this year.

He said the law will make New York the first state in the country to provide an avenue for victims of “revenge porn” to seek a court-ordered removal of their intimate images from a website.

“This new law will make it a Class A misdemeanor to disseminate revenge porn, providing prosecutors with the tools necessary to punish those who engage in this type of reprehensible behavior,” Braunstein said. “Additionally, New York will become the first state in the nation to allow victims to seek a court-ordered injunction to require websites to remove the offending images.”

Such an injunction will still be allowed for websites headquartered outside the state of New York, according to Democrats who supported the bill. The state's long-arm statute, which allows litigation against companies who do business in the state, would subject them to such an order.

State Sen. Monica Martinez, D-Suffolk, carried the legislation in the Senate this year. She's one of a handful of Democrats who were first elected last year and helped shift majority control of the chamber from Republicans to Democrats for the first time in nearly a decade.

“We are sending a strong message that this behavior will no longer be tolerated in the state of New York, and in doing so we are empowering victims to take a stand against this kind of violation,” Martinez said.

The law will also allow victims of “revenge porn” to seek civil litigation against a perpetrator for damages and other relief.

Such a lawsuit will be allowed up to three years after an image or video of the victim is shared or posted online. But if victims don't discover that an image or video of them has been shared until years later, they'll have up to one year after that discovery to bring litigation, according to the bill.

The grounds for bringing civil litigation also differ from the standard involved in a criminal prosecution of the practice. Plaintiffs will have to show that the perpetrator distributed an image or video of them unclothed or in a sexual context without their consent for the purposes of harassing, annoying or alarming them, according to the bill.

The legislation had been pushed by a handful of lawmakers in previous years, but was met with opposition at times in the Assembly. The lower chamber has often been wary about adding new crimes to the penal code.

The bill ultimately passed unanimously in both the Assembly and Senate when it came to the floor of both chambers for a vote in late February. It was delivered to Cuomo's office for a signature on Monday.

The law will take effect in late September, according to the bill.

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