Revenge Porn Charges: TAKE IT DOWN Act, Penalties, and Defenses

October 23, 2026

Revenge porn charges — the criminal counts filed when someone shares another person’s intimate images without consent — now exist under federal law and in every state and the District of Columbia. What you actually face depends on three things: whether federal or state prosecutors bring the case, whether the person in the image is an adult or a minor, and whether aggravating factors like extortion, prior convictions, or wide distribution are involved. On the low end, a first-offense misdemeanor can mean 90 days in jail and a modest fine. On the high end, charges involving a minor can trigger federal child exploitation statutes with a five-year mandatory minimum and a 20-year maximum. A separate federal civil lawsuit can add up to $150,000 in damages on top of any criminal penalty.

Federal Charges Under the TAKE IT DOWN Act

The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed May 19, 2025, is the first federal law that directly criminalizes sharing non-consensual intimate images of adults. Before it passed, federal prosecution was largely limited to cases involving minors. The statute covers both authentic images and AI-generated “digital forgeries,” and its criminal provisions took effect immediately on signing.¹

Maximum prison exposure under the Act breaks down this way:

Real images of adults: up to 2 years, a fine, or both.
Real images of minors: up to 3 years, a fine, or both.
Deepfake threats involving adults: up to 18 months.
Deepfake threats involving minors: up to 30 months.

Threatening to publish authentic intimate images carries the same penalty as actually publishing them, when the threat is made for intimidation, coercion, extortion, or to cause mental distress.² Restitution to the victim is mandatory under the Act, covering expenses like counseling and the cost of getting images removed from websites.³

What Pushes a Misdemeanor Into a Felony

At the state level, most first offenses are charged as misdemeanors. Several circumstances commonly bump the same conduct into felony territory:

A prior conviction for the same offense.
The person in the image is under 18, which also tends to trigger separate child exploitation statutes.
Wide distribution — posting publicly online rather than sending to a few people.
Using the images to extort money, sexual favors, or other concessions, which can also open sextortion charges with substantially higher penalties.
Profiting commercially, such as posting on a pay-access website.

Most state statutes still require prosecutors to prove the person depicted had a reasonable expectation of privacy, the image was shared without consent, and the defendant knew or should have known it was private. Consenting to the taking of a photograph is not the same as consenting to its distribution, and courts routinely look at text messages, emails, and the nature of the relationship when deciding whether a privacy expectation existed.

State Penalty Ranges

Penalties vary widely by state. Misdemeanor jail time runs from roughly 90 days up to two years, with fines from $500 to $10,000. Felony sentences range from about one year to ten years in prison, with fines reaching $100,000 or more in a handful of jurisdictions.

Probation is sometimes available for first-time offenders, but courts frequently attach conditions such as restrictions on internet use and mandatory counseling. Financial restitution is common at the state level as well as mandatory under federal law.

When the Victim Is a Minor

If the person in the image is under 18, the exposure changes entirely. The conduct falls under federal child exploitation law regardless of the circumstances. Distribution carries a mandatory minimum of 5 years and a maximum of 20 years in prison for a first offense. A second conviction raises the mandatory minimum to 15 years and the maximum to 40.⁴

Federal jurisdiction attaches whenever the images moved through interstate commerce, which in practice covers any transmission over the internet, email, or social media. Prosecutors do not need to show intent to harm the minor; knowing distribution of the material is enough.⁵

Teenagers who share images of other teenagers face the same statute. Federal law contains no close-in-age exception, so a 16-year-old who forwards a classmate’s photo could, in theory, face the same mandatory minimum as an adult. Some states have enacted limited exceptions for minors close in age; federal law has not.

Sextortion Enhancements

Using intimate images to coerce money, more images, or sexual acts is prosecuted as sextortion. No single federal statute uses that word, but prosecutors charge it under existing extortion and coercion laws, with federal jurisdiction attaching when threats cross state lines or move over the internet.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act’s threat provisions apply here, imposing the same penalties as actual publication when the threat is made to intimidate, coerce, or extort.² When the target is a minor, coercing production of explicit content carries a penalty starting at 15 years, even without physical contact, because the use of digital communication is enough to establish the offense.⁵

Civil Lawsuit on Top of Criminal Charges

Criminal charges are not the only exposure. Under a provision added by the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization of 2022, anyone whose intimate images were shared without consent can sue in federal court, whether or not criminal charges were filed.⁶

A successful plaintiff can recover actual damages or $150,000 in liquidated damages, whichever is higher, plus reasonable attorney fees and costs. Courts can also issue injunctions ordering the defendant to stop sharing the images, and plaintiffs may proceed under a pseudonym.⁶

The statute defines consent as affirmative, conscious, and voluntary, free from force, fraud, or coercion. Consent to the creation of an image is not consent to distribute it, and sharing an image with one person does not authorize that person to share it further. That matters because defendants in these cases almost always argue the victim “knew” the images might be shared.

Defenses and Statutory Exceptions

Both the federal law and most state statutes carve out certain disclosures. The TAKE IT DOWN Act does not criminalize:

Good-faith disclosures to law enforcement or as part of an investigation.
Disclosures for legitimate medical, scientific, or educational purposes.
Publishing intimate images of yourself.
Transmission or storage by internet service providers that do not create or select the content.¹

The federal civil statute includes similar carve-outs for disclosures made during legal proceedings, matters of public concern, commercial pornographic content produced with genuine consent, and disclosures reasonably intended to help the person depicted.⁶

Defendants also sometimes argue they didn’t know the person expected the image to stay private. How well that works depends on context: how the image was originally shared, whether there was any express or implied understanding of confidentiality, and whether a reasonable person would have assumed privacy. Text messages and social media conversations are often decisive evidence.

Sex Offender Registration

Registration is not automatic. Only a handful of states require it for non-consensual image sharing convictions, and the triggers vary. Some states require registration only when the victim is a minor. Others impose it on repeat offenders. At least one state explicitly bars registration for these convictions, treating the conduct as purely a privacy crime.

At the federal level, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act sorts offenses into three tiers by severity. Non-consensual intimate image distribution involving adults is not specifically enumerated under any tier. When the offense involves a minor, however, convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 2252 are classified as Tier I for possession and receipt or Tier II for production and distribution, carrying registration periods of 15 years and 25 years respectively.⁷

Life After the Sentence

A conviction follows you past the courtroom. Felony records show up on background checks and can disqualify people from jobs in education, healthcare, law enforcement, and anything requiring a professional license. Licensing boards have broad authority to revoke, suspend, or deny credentials based on criminal conduct they consider relevant to the profession, and a conviction involving sexual content or harassment generally qualifies.

Even a misdemeanor can be hard to clear on background screening for positions involving vulnerable populations or sensitive information. These convictions tend to reshape careers for years, which is one reason the defense strategy at the misdemeanor stage often matters as much as the sentence itself.

1
Congress.gov. The TAKE IT DOWN Act: A Federal Law Prohibiting Nonconsensual Intimate Visual Depictions
2
Congress.gov. Text – S.146 – TAKE IT DOWN Act
3
Congress.gov. S.146 – TAKE IT DOWN Act 119th Congress
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2252 – Certain Activities Relating to Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors
5
United States Department of Justice. Citizen’s Guide To U.S. Federal Law On Child Pornography
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6851 – Civil Action Relating to Disclosure of Intimate Images
7
Office of Justice Programs. Guide to SORNA Implementation