FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, November 18, 2022

Defendant Illegally Shared and Posted Images Over Three-Year Period

            WASHINGTON – Kyle Alexander Jackson, 25, of Chicago, was sentenced today in the District of Columbia to five years in prison for stalking and unlawfully publishing graphic, sexual images of a woman, and for stalking and threatening witnesses to these offenses.

            This case involves the “Criminalization of Non-Consensual Pornography Act of 2014” a District of Columbia law that codifies the offense of “unlawful publication” and prohibits the publication or disclosure of explicit photos without the consent of the person depicted in them, even if the photos were taken or given to the defendant consensually by the victim. 

            The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

            Jackson pleaded guilty on Aug. 4, 2022, to two counts of first-degree unlawful publication, one count of unlawful disclosure, two counts of stalking, and one count of felony threats. He was sentenced by the Honorable Lynn Leibovitz. Upon completion of his prison term, Jackson will be placed on three years of supervised release. He also will be required to stay away from the victims and is barred from talking about them on social media.

            “Kyle Jackson subjected the primary victim in this case—his ex-girlfriend—to years of torment,” said U.S. Attorney Graves. “This case demonstrates the importance of the law that expressly prohibits such unlawful publication of explicit photos without consent. Now Kyle Jackson is being held accountable for his reprehensible acts.”

            According to the government’s evidence, Jackson and the victim were romantically involved for a period several years ago while students at a Washington, D.C. area university. After the conclusion of their relationship, in 2018, Jackson showed sexually explicit images of the victim to other individuals, prompting a Title IX investigation. His behavior escalated when, over the course of several months in 2019, he created multiple fake GroupMe accounts, which he used to post the victim’s sexually explicit images. He often impersonated the victim as well, soliciting others to contact her at her social media accounts. In 2020 and 2021, Jackson continued to post the images on GroupMe and began to post them on Kik and other platforms as well. Often, he would then send text messages to the victim from TextNow numbers, pretending to be other individuals who had seen the explicit images on the internet. Jackson also used these numbers to send a variety of harassing and unwanted text messages. At one point in 2021, Jackson mailed sexually explicit images to the victim’s employer.

            In June 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against Jackson for this conduct. While the criminal case against Jackson was pending, he began to harass potential witnesses in the case. In the first several months of 2022, Jackson sent numerous harassing emails, many containing racist and sexist slurs, to these victims. Jackson used the victims’ professional email addresses and contacted their co-workers as well. The conduct eventually escalated to include violent threats of sexual assault and murder. In April 2022, Jackson was arrested in relation to this conduct and has remained held since.

            In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Graves and Chief Contee commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Metropolitan Police Department. They also expressed appreciation for the assistance provided by the Chicago Police Department.

            They acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Special Agent Nelson Rhone of the Criminal Investigations Unit; Victim/Witness Advocate Veronica Vaughan, and Paralegal Specialist Tiffany Jones.

            Finally, they commended the work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marco Crocetti and Kathleen Houck, who investigated and prosecuted the matter.