Man convicted in ‘revenge porn’ case involving former Sonoma State University student

NAPA - An Oklahoma man was convicted in a Napa courtroom Friday of running a website for so-called “revenge porn” and trying to extort money from victims who wanted explicit photographs of themselves taken down.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris said 28-year-old Casey Meyering of Tulsa pleaded no contest to charges of extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy that carry a maximum prison term of six years. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 8 and has been jailed since he was arrested in Oklahoma 15 months ago and extradited to California.

Meyering did not make a statement as he entered the plea, which under California law carries the same legal weight as pleading guilty.

The Attorney General’s Office said Meyering operated a website called Winbystate.com that encouraged visitors to post nude photos of “your ex-girlfriend, your current girlfriend, or any other girl that you might know.” More than 400 images were on the site’s California forum, many of which included the names of the women and the towns or cities where they lived.

The case was tried in California because some of the victims of the site, as well as some of the people uploading photos to it, were located in the state. Meyering was arrested following an investigation in Rohnert Park into a former Sonoma State University student who was suspected of uploading photos of a classmate to Meyering’s site.

Investigators found Meyering by paying a $250 fee to take down photos of a Napa woman that the site demanded and traced it to Meyering’s bank account, prosecutors said.

The conviction is the second of its kind in California this year. A jury convicted a 27-year-old San Diego man in February on 27 counts of identity theft and extortion for operating another website that posted compromising photos and charging victims to remove the images. Kevin Bollaert was sentenced to 18 years in prison.