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STORY: [ON-SCREEN WARNING:
This video contains graphic language, details and images which some viewers may find distressing.]
ADREIONA: “He took his telephone out to file”
SAMMY: “An organization noticed me being raped.”
FALZONE: “OnlyFans companions straight with people who find themselves breaking the regulation.”
AMANDA: “Do I want to only strip bare and present you my bare physique so that you can consider me?”
MICHELSON: “I ought to have by no means posted that video”
REPORTER: This can be a story about OnlyFans, the favored adults-only web site the place anybody can promote sexually specific movies of themselves. However the platform has a darker facet. It has been a house to nonconsensual pornography. And in Sammy’s case, far worse: a video of her alleged rape.
SAMMY: I met Jean on BLK, which is a relationship app.
[DATE: July 13, 2022
VIDEO SOURCE: Miami-Dade Police Dept
CAPTION: Linda So, Reuters]
REPORTER: In April of 2022, Sammy, a school pupil from Florida, says she began speaking to a man named Jean on a relationship app. Jean’s actual identify is Bendjy Charles.
SAMMY: “He referred to as me that evening so I may go over to his home and hang around along with his pals.”
REPORTER: When she met up with Bendjy and acquired into his automotive, she says his pal, Michelson Romelus was within the passenger seat.
SAMMY: “We drive from my home again to Jean’s home. In my head I anticipated extra individuals. I assumed there was simply going to be a bunch of us.”
REPORTER: However when Sammy walked into the condo, she says nobody else was there. She felt uncomfortable, however tried to remain calm. After some drinks and dancing, Sammy says the temper modified and the lads grew sexually aggressive.
[DATE: July 13, 2022
VIDEO SOURCE: Miami-Dade Police Dept]
SAMMY: Michelson comes behind me and he tries to penetrate me anally, and I instructed him to get the fuck off of me. He slaps me within the face. They put me in varied positions and took turns. Jean acquired off of me and I keep in mind simply being like I’m achieved. And I get able to stroll out. I instructed them to take me to my pal’s job.
DETECTIVE: You get again within the automotive, and also you inform them to take you to your pal’s job? They usually take you? They usually drop you off?
SAMMY: I let my pal know that I feel they had been recording me. He goes on Michelson’s profile and finds his… like within the bio, there’s hyperlinks and considered one of them was to OnlyFans.
REPORTER: By means of a public data request, Reuters was in a position to get hold of screenshots of the alleged rape video that was posted on OnlyFans.
SAMMY: After that occurred, I used to be misplaced. An organization noticed me being raped they usually made cash off of it. They noticed me destroyed they usually acquired a test.
REPORTER: A Reuters investigation recognized a minimum of 128 circumstances between 2019 and 2023 during which individuals complained to U.S. regulation enforcement companies that specific photographs and movies of themselves ended up on OnlyFans with out their consent.
[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: His OnlyFans page which had explicit photos of myself.]
REPORTER: In response to Reuters’ findings, an OnlyFans spokesperson mentioned that “within the few examples the place dangerous actors have misused our platform,” OnlyFans “eliminated the content material swiftly, banned the person and actively
supported investigations and prosecutions.”
[CAPTION: Amanda Dicrosta, Florida]
AMANDA: “Mike and I had gone forwards and backwards over the months. Attempting to rekindle issues … Him and I’d have intercourse. I observed one time that he was recording me and I requested him to cease.”
REPORTER: Amanda Dicrosta instructed police she had no concept her ex-boyfriend was posting their intercourse movies on-line. Her ex, Mike McFarland, is a former NFL participant for the Indianapolis Colts. The 2 began relationship in 2019 after they met in Florida.
AMANDA: My ex earlier than Mike had, I assume, been like watching us on social media and stuff and located his non-public Twitter account with the Onlyfans hooked up to it. I didn’t know what he was speaking about so he began sending me screenshots and was like oh you didn’t learn about this? I referred to as Mike and he took them down instantly. Did not give me a tough time about it, so I by no means went ahead to press prices. You recognize, it was he took them down, no questions requested, cool. I used to be sitting exterior after work in the future and I simply had like this this mild bulb that went off in my head. And I used to be like, oh, my God, like, what if he posted the movies once more? There was all the previous movies from once we had been collectively after which movies that he took of me after we had damaged up and we had been rekindling issues. The second time it was solely movies with out my face.
REPORTER: Phrase was getting round amongst household and pals about how she supposedly was doing porn on OnlyFans.
AMANDA: That was a extremely arduous time in my life. Simply a lot judgment from individuals who I assumed had been completely different to not even care to listen to my facet and simply assume that now I am doing porn. It was simply, it was, it was actually, actually degrading. I lastly simply drove to Tampa, went to the police division. I used to be simply hoping that they might take me significantly, truthfully. After all it is a male cop. Like most of them are. So I am, once more, simply taking my intercourse movies and simply displaying them to extra individuals for them to show round and inform me that there is nothing that they’ll do for me.
REPORTER: In accordance with the police incident report, after investigators consulted with the state legal professional’s workplace, they instructed Amanda the case couldn’t be prosecuted as a result of the movies didn’t embrace info that particularly recognized her.
AMANDA: I’ve each single piece of clothes within the video. I actually have every little thing to today, hoping that in the future that I can nonetheless go to courtroom and say, look, these had been my underwear, this was my gown.
[CAPTION: Mary Anne Franks, George Washington Univ. Law School professor]
MARY ANNE FRANKS: Whenever you grow to be a goal of this type of abuse, it’s so arduous to erase it. it is arduous to erase the picture itself. It is arduous to erase the impression that it has. The last word purpose ought to be deterrence. Cease individuals from doing this to start with.
REPORTER: To guard herself sooner or later, Amanda acquired a tattoo on her bottom.
AMANDA: My physique isn’t yours. You do not have a proper to a single a part of it. Not a video of it, not an image. That was like my means of serving to myself and defending myself if this had been to ever occur once more.
[CAPTION: Adreiona Prater, Texas]
ADREIONA: I used to be a shy individual, harmless, most would say. As soon as I graduated highschool, my subsequent step was to enter faculty. I wished to be a felony lawyer.
REPORTER: Adreiona Prater met Anthony Scott whereas attending faculty in Texas in July of 2019, and briefly dated him.
ADREIONA: I used to be at my home in the future. I went out to take my trash and he was strolling his canine and he noticed me and he got here and knocked on my door, requested for my quantity. And from there we began hanging out.
REPORTER: She says that summer season, the 2 grew to become romantically concerned and had intercourse in her condo.
ADREIONA: He took his telephone out to file and I used to be like, no, no, like, let’s not do that. And he is like, I promise, like I’ll delete it afterwards.
REPORTER: However, in truth, he hadn’t deleted the video, she says. Months later, Adreiona found Anthony had posted it on OnlyFans and different platforms.
ADREIONA: It was simply loopy from that day. Lots of people had been contacting me. I finished going to courses. I simply could not. I could not do it anymore. I felt like my life was over with.
REPORTER: In June of 2022, Anthony pleaded responsible to violating Texas’ revenge porn regulation and acquired three years of group supervision. Anthony instructed Reuters that he didn’t do something incorrect and declined to debate another particulars concerning the case.
SAMMY: I’ll by no means quit on music, I’ll by no means quit on singing, I’ll by no means quit on writing. These are the few issues that nobody can take away from me. [SINGING MIXED IN] Yeah, I selected to be alive after this, however how am I going to do it?
[DATE: July 26, 2022
VIDEO SOURCE: Miami-Dade Police Dept]
DETECTIVE: Pronounce your first identify for me?
ROMELUS: Michelson.
DETECTIVE: And your final identify?
ROMELUS: Romelus.
DETECTIVE: These are your constitutional rights afforded by the USA of America, okay?
REPORTER: Sammy’s alleged assailants, Michelson Romelus and Bendjy Charles are as a result of stand trial later this yr on prices of sexual battery and distributing obscene materials. Each have denied the costs and pleaded not responsible.
DETECTIVE: Do you file, all of your sexual…
ROMELUS: Sure, sure sir, like every little thing.
DETECTIVE: With completely different females?
ROMELUS: Sure, sir.
DETECTIVE: Do they know they’re being recorded?
ROMELUS: Yeah. She is aware of. Sure, sir.
DETECTIVE: Simply one thing you guys simply do?
ROMELUS: Effectively, me, when I’ve intercourse with someone I at all times movie it. That is like… only a one time expertise, so.
DETECTIVE: Like a trophy?
ROMELUS: Uh, mainly, however not likely.
DETECTIVE: Audio?
DETECTIVE: This younger woman ended up within the hospital. Yeah. And she or he made a police report after she acquired to the hospital. At no level, she mentioned, did she conform to do any sexual exercise with you.
DETECTIVES: Do you know that is on an OnlyFans web page? It’s on social media. It’s on social media. That’s how we acquired it. That’s how we acquired it.
BENDJY: I didn’t know that.
DETECTIVES: Any individual’s profiting. Any individual’s making a living. Off of this.
BENDJY: Michelson. Is it Michelson?
DETECTIVE: There’s only some ways in which video made it to the web. Your telephone, his telephone, or a ghost.
REPORTER: Separate from the felony trial, Sammy is suing her alleged assailants and OnlyFans in federal courtroom.
[CAPTION: Todd Falzone, Sammy’s lawyer]
FALZONE: I am Todd Falzone. I’m a accomplice on the regulation agency of Kelley Uustal in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I symbolize Sammy on this case. OnlyFans companions straight with people who find themselves breaking the regulation. There have been {dollars} that went into OnlyFans’ account that had been revenue from a rape video. Sammy’s case is likely one of the first that seeks to carry an organization that has clearly profited as a accomplice with people who find themselves committing these acts of intercourse trafficking and sexual violence and sexual exploitation.
REPORTER: In response to the lawsuit, OnlyFans’ U.S. subsidiary, Fenix Web, mentioned it should search to have the case dismissed. The corporate says free speech protections protect it from legal responsibility for content material posted by its customers.
SAMMY: I see my story ending, or a minimum of chapter, with everybody being the place they belong. That’s my sanity being restored. These two individuals being in jail.
ROMELUS: “I ought to have by no means posted that video.”
SAMMY: And OnlyFans being held accountable.
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