"Revenge Porn" gets man one year in prison

A man was found guilty of violating a domestic violence restraining order by a jury in El Dorado County on November 1, 2017.

Daniel Ramirez Rios, 43, violated a domestic violence restraining order and one count of intentionally distributing the images of the intimate body parts of another person – also known as “revenge porn.” Mr. Rios was remanded into custody after the jury’s verdict was announced.

In 2013, Rios was convicted in El Dorado County of one count of misdemeanor domestic violence and one count of misdemeanor child abuse and endangerment. The victims in that case were Mr. Rios’s wife and minor daughter. After that conviction, Mr. Rios was sentenced to a three year term of probation and 30 days in county jail. The Court in that case also issued a protective order which prohibited Mr. Rios from contacting his wife and daughter.

From March, 2016 to September, 2016, Rios made repeated, prohibited contact with both his wife and daughter. During one 24-hour period in April of 2016, Mr. Rios sent over 40 text messages to his wife, most of which were aggressive and even threatening in tone. In September of that year, he sent a dozen text messages to his wife, several of which included explicit photographs of the intimate body parts of his ex-girlfriend.

According to the El Dorado County District Attorney's office, which prosecuted the case, Rios sent these sexually explicit images with the intent to cause emotional distress not only to his wife, the recipient of the images, but also to his ex-girlfriend.

At the time their relationship came to an end, Mr. Rios’s ex-girlfriend had begged Mr. Rios to delete these sexually explicit images from his phone, but Mr. Rios refused and told her that he intended to post the images on an “ex-girlfriend revenge porn” site as punishment to her for breaking up with him.

After the two-day trial, the case was submitted to the jury and it took the eight women and four men jury less than 40 minutes to return with guilty verdicts on all seven counts.

On November 3, 2017, Mr. Rios was sentenced by the Honorable Thomas A. Smith to 360 days in county jail and a three year term of probation. Judge Smith also issued three new criminal protective orders for the three victims in the case – wife, child, and ex-girlfriend.