A San Diego man who operated a “revenge porn” website and then charged victims to remove nude images and personal information was sentenced on Friday to 18 years in state prison, the attorney general’s office has said. Kevin Bollaert, 28, was convicted in February of 21 counts of identity theft and six counts of extortion in San Diego superior court for running a pair of websites that capitalised on the internet as a forum for public shaming.

Jilted lovers and hackers could anonymously post nude photos of people without their consent, along with personal information, at a website Bollaert created called ugotposted.com. More than 10,000 images, mainly of women, were posted between December 2012 and September 2013. People who sought to have the explicit images taken down were directed to changemyreputation.com and charged $250 to $350 to remove the content.

The compromising photos cost people jobs, damaged relationships and led to one attempted suicide. Bollaert earned about $900 a month in website ad revenue and collected about $30,000 from victims.

Bollaert’s lawyer claimed at the trial that the business was gross and offensive, but that their client did not break the law by allowing others to post the explicit material.

