Florida state Sen. Lauren Book.Photo: Steve Cannon/AP/Shutterstock
After learning that naked images of herself had been stolen and then bought and traded online since 2020, Florida state Sen. Lauren Book is responding with legislation that aims to strengthen her state’s revenge porn law.
Book, 37, is sponsoring abillthat would make it a felony to buy, sell or trade stolen sexually explicit images from someone’s phone or another digital device. The legislation would also make it a felony to disseminate or sell digitally-altered sexually explicit images, also known as “deepfakes.”
“I hate that this happened to me,” Book, a Democrat and the state’s Senate minority leader, toldthe Associated Presspublished Tuesday. “I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But I’ll take it, because I know that I can do something about it.”
Book told the AP that the images taken from her included a post-operation photo of her lumpectomy scar that she with a friend. She said she doesn’t know how the images were stolen but suggested that they may have been hacked from her digital storage.
Book is a survivor of sexual abuse and founded the groupLauren’s Kidsin 2007. The group aims to help people who were sexually abused in childhood and works to prevent future abuse.
Learning that private images of her own body had made their way across the Internet “brought up all of the stuff,” Book told the AP.
“All of it that you think that you’ve gotten under your belt, that you’ve fixed it and you’ve changed it and then all of a sudden here it is in front of your face,” she said, adding that the images are still online.
“There are still things up there. Still. They’ll never be gone. People were buying it, people were trading it, and this is not unique. This is happening every single day, to women predominantly,” she told the AP.
Jeremy Kamperveen of Plantation, Florida,was arrested Nov. 17, according toThe Miami Herald.Kamperveen, now 20, allegedly sent Book “sexually explicit photos” featuring “female genitalia and the portrayal of a sexual act,” which he threatened to release unless the senator gave him $5,000 in gift cards.
Book released a statement at the time of the arrest, saying, “Three weeks ago, I became the victim of ongoing sexual harassment and extortion,” per theHerald.
She continued, “I immediately notified law enforcement and began working closely with them to track those responsible for sending threatening and disturbing images and messages to my phone, including distorted, fake and stolen images created in an effort to intimidate, threaten, and extort me.”
Kamperveen is charged with cyber-stalking and extortion. He was released on bond after his arrest and has pleaded not guilty. A listed attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
source: people.com
