Lancman and top revenge porn lawyer stress consequences for cyber sex assault

Victims’ rights attorney Carrie Goldberg (right) and her associate Annie Seifullah (left) joined Councilmember Rory Lancman to call on prosecutors to take victims’ revenge porn complaints seriously. eagle photo by david brand

By David Brand

Attorney Carrie Goldberg specialized in elder law before a sadistic ex-boyfriend began to menace her, threatening to disrupt her life by sharing her intimate images. Police and prosecutors were slow to pursue a criminal case for the extortion and harassment.

When she went to Family Court and asked the judge for an Order of Protection to prevent her ex from sharing the images, she was told she had a “first amendment problem.”

The experience compelled Goldberg to shift her focus to defending victims of revenge porn and other attempts at sex-based extortion. She founded C.A. Goldberg PLLC.  

“I started this firm to be the lawyer I needed,” Goldberg said Tuesday inside her Brooklyn Heights office, where she defends individuals under attack from “pervs, assholes, psychos and trolls.” Goldberg also began advocating for a state law to criminalize revenge porn, also known as “cyber sexual assault.” She found an ally in Councilmember Rory Lancman, who led a City Council effort to make revenge porn illegal in New York City in 2017. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has yet to sign a revenge porn bill passed by the state legislature earlier this year.

On Tuesday, Goldberg and law graduate Annie Seifullah joined Lancman to call on prosecutors to take revenge porn complaints seriously, work to bring charges against perpetrators and advocate for policy changes to punish abuse that does not fit neatly into existing law. Lancman said he would focus on revenge porn offenses if elected Queens District Attorney.

“When DAs are confronted with a scenario where someone is hurt and they see the circumstances don’t fit the existing law, they need to reach out to the City Council, to the state legislature and say, ‘We don’t have the tools to prosecute this,’” Lancman said. “If you come to [the DA’s Office] as a victim of something we are going to find a way to help.”

Seifullah, a recent CUNY Law graduate and a victim of a revenge porn attack, said Goldberg’s law firm routinely fields calls from victims who say police and prosecutors have ignored their complaints related to revenge porn and harassment.

“They have been victims of sexual assault and cyber sexual assault and when they go to the police or someone else who should protect them, more often than not, they are turned away because this system, as it is, is not built to help victims,” she said. “Especially when those victims are women, people of color, queer or trans. Or poor.”

Seifullah was forced from her job as a principal at a Queens school after a former partner sent photos of her to the Department of Education and the media in 2014. At the time, she said, she didn't even know what revenge porn was, but she quickly learned the consequences.

She was abandoned by “the people who should have stood beside” her and advised to resign, move and change her name. The police arrested the ex-boyfriend who shared the images, but the Queens DA declined to prosecute, she said.

“Luckily, I didn’t take the advice to disappear … I stood my ground,” said Seifullah, who won a settlement in a discrimination suit against the city last year. “I put myself through law school and became obsessed with learning how to change the system.”