Identified only as John Doe in court documents, a Hampshire County man was a sophomore in college when he began making payments in hopes of keeping a series of his intimate photos from being sent to his family and friends.
He had been chatting with “Annie” during the 2020-2021 school year when he was away at college in Wisconsin, who sent him a message on Instagram. Photos on the social media accounts showed “Annie” was “a blonde-haired, college-aged female,” according to his lawsuit.
It progressed to exchanging nude photos and videos on Snapchat. That’s when the person behind the account said they would distribute Doe’s images unless he sent money, according to the court record.
More than a year after Doe stopped the payments, about 20 of his family and friends received the intimate images from a Snapchat account pretending to be him. Some of the recipients were under 18, according to the court record.
This week, John Doe filed a lawsuit in federal court in Springfield against two men he said invaded his privacy, shared his intimate images and conspired to obtain nude photos of him and others. In doing so, he invoked a law only a few years old designed to help people whose intimate images were shared without their permission to seek recourse in federal court.
“Defendant (William) Prunier and Defendant (Jacob Liam) Koski agreed to a plan whereby Defendant Prunier would obtain nude photographs of people they knew and Defendant Koski would provide Defendant Prunier money in exchange for the nude photographs,” says Doe’s complaint.
Koski’s attorney, William Kneeshaw, said while he had not yet received a copy of Doe’s complaint, he said his client was not involved.
“We adamantly dispute any involvement by Mr. Koski in this situation,” Kneeshaw said. He said Koski does not have any criminal charges pending against him.
A criminal case against Prunier, meanwhile, has been working its way through Franklin Superior Court since April 2024. Prosecutors charged him with trafficking a person for sexual servitude, extortion by threat of injury, sending obscene matter to a minor, identity fraud and harassment. A pretrial hearing is scheduled in January.
Prunier has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Joseph Pacella, who represents Prunier in the criminal case, said while the two cases allege similar facts, the evidence he’s seen in the criminal case do not support the charges against his client.
“Many of the overlapping allegations in the civil complaint do not appear to be born out by the evidence that I (have) been provided and reviewed in the criminal case,” Pacella wrote in an email.
In May, Judge Jeremy Bucci declined to toss some of the charges filed against Prunier. While Prunier’s attorney argued a grand jury heard a distorted account of his client’s interview with police, the judge disagreed.
“(After) listening to the defendant’s recorded statement, it is entirely unclear that the defendant limited his use of Snapchat for this criminal enterprise to only four accounts as the defendant now argues,” Bucci wrote.
Doe sent the money to “Annie” though Zelle, CashApp and via Western Union money transfers, about $20,000 in all, according to his complaint filed in federal court.
After about a year, Doe’s parents learned about the situation when they confronted him about his spending, according to the complaint. The family went to the police. He deleted his social media accounts.
About 15 months passed before a high school friend of Doe’s called in October 2023 to say several people received nude images of him.
The incident caused mental anguish and emotional distress to the point Doe required medical treatment, the complaint says, and he needed therapeutic treatment and care.
The Deerfield Police Department obtained a warrant for the Snapchat account that pretended to be Doe and that had distributed the images.
“Location data revealed that the address was from the same street where Doe grew up, and where his family still lived,” the complaint says. “Data also revealed significant activity at the Greenfield District Court.”
When he was interviewed by police, Prunier said he had worked at the court for two years, according to Doe’s attorneys. The Massachusetts Trial Court did not return a request for comment, but a clerk at the office said he did not work there anymore.
Prunier told police on Jan. 12, 2024, he had pretended to be “Annie,” asked Doe for nude photos and video, and had shared the images, even distributing them the day before, according to the complaint.
Doe is demanding $1.5 million and for a judge to order Prunier and Koski to stop sharing or displaying images of him.
Doe’s attorneys filed the suit under a law Congress created in 2022 that creates a new claim for people whose intimate images were shared without their consent can pursue in federal court. It was the first federal law to target what’s known as revenge porn.
His attorneys say his claims are a cautionary tale for the internet age.
“Frankly, this case reminds me of many of things I used to warn kids about when I gave internet safety presentations at schools when I was an assistant U.S. attorney in Springfield,” Alex Grant, of the firm Alekman DiTusa, wrote in an email.
Laura Mangini, another attorney for Doe, wrote in an email that “this form of ‘sextortion’ is becoming a much larger issue, especially for teenage boys.”
The FBI’s internet crime complaint center said between the beginning of the year to July 31, 2021, it had received 16,000 reports of sextortion. Almost half of those being extorted, the FBI said, were between the ages 20 and 39. The fewest number of complaints were people under 20.
By 2024, the FBI had warned that sextortion was increasingly targeting minors, typically teenaged males. The incidents drove some to suicide, the FBI said.
