BEAUMONT, Texas — The attorney suing Texxxan.com claims that two underage females have come forward with their parents claiming their erotic photos were posted on the revenge porn site.
Texas attorney John S. Morgan last month sued unknown operators of Texxxan.com and host GoDaddy.com for invasion of privacy, emotional distress and civil conspiracy under Texas Law on behalf of more than two dozen women whose nude photographs appeared on the site.
Now Morgan, after weeks of investigation and witness interviews, said he's identified those responsible for the website.
The Beaumont, Texas, attorney said the operator of Texxxan.com has been identified as Hunter Thomas Taylor, who along with his parents and a website administrator have been attached as defendants to an amended petition filed Monday.
Morgan said that he is working with the FBI in reporting the instances of underage porn on the site, which has been disabled since Jan. 28.
The new charges involving underage photos could be particularly problematic for the defendants.
Guidelines for enforcing regulations — 18 U.S.C. § 2257 — place stringent record-keeping requirements on the producers of sexually explicit materials, as well as secondary producers who publish, reproduce or reissue explicit material.
Morgan also said he is going to continue to add defendants to the case, including those who uploaded the photos to the site as subscribers. The site started operating in July.
Taylor, the alleged proprietor of Texxxan.com, is said to have used his parents credit cards to buy the website. Taylor, 24, lives with his parents.
According to Morgan, Taylor also is known as "Burt Martien," who has performed in a number of porn productions, and has been linked to a number of computer services relating to web design, online media and advertising.
An Internet search of "Burt Martien" yields a number of casted performances for videos distributed by gay studio Jake Cruise Productions.
Morgan told XBIZ that much of the nude content on Texxxan.com involved stolen content off social networks such as Facebook, as well as photos posted by spurned partners. The site offered explicit photos of local Texas women by region.
"A lot of the women involved in the suit have said that the nude photos were taken without their knowledge — perhaps while they were in college, drunk at the bar, swimming at a lake — and some of the pictures may have come from ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands," Morgan said.
The suit, filed in Orange County Court in Texas, seeks class-action status and asks for an injunction — temporary and permanent — actual and punitive damages and attorneys fees.
Texxxan.com relied on premium memberships and local escort advertising for its revenue.
Revenge porn is a recent phenomenon where website operators have posted nude or erotic images of women or men without their consent. Much of the content is acquired illegally through computer hacking. Some revenge porn sites include actual email addresses, cell and home phone numbers, links to Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, and residential addresses displayed for all to see.
