The couple who spread nude pictures of celebrities was sentenced again – 2024-03-14 15:51:25

The woman from Turku, who has now been sentenced for the second time, covered her face during the imprisonment trial in December 2019. Roni Lehti

The District Court of Varsinais-Finland has sentenced a photographer couple to conditional imprisonment for distributing nude photos. The district court convicted a 49-year-old man and a woman of the same age for gross defamation and gross dissemination of information that violates private life.

The married couple has five victims in this sentence. The district court of Varsinais-Suomen ordered the couple to pay 8,000 euros in compensation to each of them. Late payment interest must be added to compensation from the last day of payment, i.e. November 16, 2019.

The couple’s punishment is one year and two months of suspended imprisonment. Along with probation, they must complete 80 hours of community service. They must pay the legal costs of their victims, which are a total of 9,467 euros, and the court costs, which are a total of 24,605 ​​euros.

The district court condemned Naked Pictures and other sensitive pictures to be destroyed.

The couple received no financial benefit from their activities. Therefore, there is also no criminal benefit that would have been awarded to the state.

The trial in Turku was held behind closed doors and the verdict has also been secret for 60 years.

No financial gain

The Turku Court of Appeal sentenced the couple in a similar but larger trial on February 18, 2022. The crimes were identical at the time, but there were seven victims.

Some of the victims of the previous trial were celebrities, among others Laura Birn, Elena Leeve and Anna-Maija Tuokko.

The actresses had photographed themselves in the couple’s studio. So there was consent to take nude photos.

The couple’s husband took the photos. However, the pictures ended up on the photographer’s website and could be seen and downloaded by anyone. Predictably, the pictures went viral.

The couple denied the crimes. The images were not offensive. They had been taken during filming and they had not distributed the photos. The man who took the pictures also claimed that he has the copyright to the pictures.

We were finally caught

The criminal complaint about the sleeping photos circulating on the internet was already filed in 2014. However, the couple effectively evaded the authorities. They spent long periods abroad. They were only able to be sued on November 16, 2019.

On the same day, the police also arrested them and then the police were able to investigate the crimes against the last five victims in time.

During the five years on the run, the couple circulated pictures of several victims. Due to the slow reaction of the courts, the suspected crimes of the first two years have time to expire.

Two years ago, the Court of Appeal of Turku sentenced the couple from Turku to a suspended prison sentence of one year and two months, to 60 hours of community service, and to pay compensation of ten thousand euros to each victim.

Now the couple received a second suspended prison sentence and a second community service sentence.

The couple will not go to prison, even though the sentence is already different. The probationary period of the first suspended sentence has already ended. Also, the couple committed the now-convicted crimes before their first conviction, so theoretically they could have been sentenced together in the same trial for all 12 victims.