[ChuckMcM]

Yes he did. There is a strange cognitive dissonance between email and regular mail. If someone broke into an apartment lobby, picked the lock on the mailboxes, took out a set of film prints [1] from the drug store, made copies of the 'private and personal' pictures contained therein and then shared them with their friends for prurient reasons, what sort of punishment is deserved there?

The "virtual" nature of email makes it seem so much more distant than the reality of breaking and entering into someone elses home for the purposes of stealing their mail.

[1] Well presumably not surprising but there was an interesting arrest of a guy who did this at CostCo by searching through the finished pictures boxes looking for interesting pictures for his "collection."

[moe]

If someone broke into an apartment lobby

Do you really face 10yrs for breaking into a hollywood apartment and releasing nude tapes you found?

I can see him going to a jail for a while, but 10 years is an awful long time for a crime that very likely didn't leave permanent damage of any kind (psychological, physical or otherwise).

[ChuckMcM]

Guess it varies, according to this report from the Post Office in 2001 https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/radDocs/pubs/ar01_01.pdf there are both shorter and longer sentences handed out.

I really can't speak for the judicial system of course, I do know that people I've talked to about this case see "email" as being less "real" than physical mail, and I also have spoken to people who have had their mail stolen and used against them. It is hard to be dispassionate about relative punishment in that case.

It may be that if someone stole your mail and published it you would just laugh it off. This guy took it a bit further than that I would say.

And just for context, in California at least since our prisons are over full, the most this guy would serve would be 5 years, and then he'd be eligible for parole in 18 months, less time off for good behavior. I don't know if Florida has similar issues but there are times in the California system where the goal is to have the person spend at least some time in jail and that sometimes requires a longer than expected sentence. (No idea at all if that is the case in Florida though)

[phaus]

I too think that the sentence was extremely harsh, but people can and sometimes do remain permanently traumatized after having nude pictures of themselves posted for the entire world to see.

Just because someone is a celebrity, doesn't mean that he or she wouldn't feel violated, humiliated, or degraded by such an experience. Supposedly the reason that the White Stripes stopped touring was because Meg kept having severe anxiety attacks on stage. This started happening shortly after someone released a sex tape that supposedly featured her. So basically, whether or not it was actually her in the video, the idea that everyone thought it was traumatized her so much that she couldn't even show up to work without having a panic attack. That seems pretty severe to me.

It's also important to note that there are teenagers who have attempted / succeeded in killing themselves as a result of having their private pictures being released.

I think that 10 years is too much, but I don't think for a second that it wasn't a serious crime.

[wpietri]

A few years back my physical mail was stolen and discovered in the backpack of somebody they arrested. At the USPS's request, I sent in a statement saying, yes, that was the Christmas card from my brother, and no, I didn't give it to the accused. Eventually I got a letter saying the accused was sentenced to 3 years.

[jjoonathan]

"Cognitive dissonance"? Even if I were to admit that your proposed situations was analogous -- and I don't -- you're making the dubious assumption that the majority of us believe 10 years is an appropriate sentence for the physical crime but not the virtual crime. I happen to believe 10 years would be steep (understatement) in any case and I suspect I'm not alone.