An Indiana lawmaker is very sorry if you’ve recently received “anything offensive” from his cellphone. Specifically, his offensive sex tape.
Representative Jud McMillin resigned his role as Indiana House Majority Leader on Tuesday after his cellphone sent a sexually explicit video to an unknown number of recipients. McMillin, a Republican who helped pass a 2015 “religious freedom” law allowing businesses to ban gay customers, claimed that his phone had been “out of my control for about 24 hours” after being stolen in Canada.
Unfortunately for McMillin, it’s perfectly legal for someone to distribute a pornographic video of him without his consent. That’s because, as a member of the House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code, McMillin helped block a bill that would criminalize revenge porn in Indiana.
The exact acts depicted in the video remain unclear, although the Indianapolis Business Journal reports that McMillin is definitely the tape’s feature player. But according to McMillin’s apologetic mass-text to his phone contacts, he didn’t hit the send button.
“My phone was stolen in Canada and out of my control for about 24 hours,” McMillin texted contacts. “I have just been able to reactivate it under my control. Please disregard any messages you received recently. I am truly sorry for anything offensive you may have received.”
At least one person who received the apology text replied that they hadn’t received anything offensive, a possible indication that someone else had sent the explicit video. If so, the sender could be subject for arrest in Alaska, Arkansas, California, and over 20 other states with laws against non-consensual or “revenge” porn.
Indiana considered its own revenge porn bill as recently as this winter. The proposal would criminalize the distribution of pornographic images without their subject’s consent, elevating the act to a Class B Misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail. Victims of revenge porn would also be allowed to sue their attacker for damages in civil court.
But the bill, introduced by Democrat Christina Hale, never made it to a vote. The House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code, of which McMillin was a member and former chair, did not hear the bill, the IndyStar reports.
This is McMillin’s second time resigning an office over explicit photos of himself. In 2005, he stepped down from his role as an assistant prosecutor, after pursuing a relationship with Crystal Stapleton, a domestic violence victim whose boyfriend he had been prosecuting.
“McMillin began to text-message me on my phone and send me photographs of himself which he took with his cell phone and sent to my cell phone,” Stapleton later testified in court. “The photographs he sent to me were sexual in nature as were my photographs.”
According to the Bilerico Report, McMillin’s photos depicting him masturbating and using a dildo. These photos were submitted and quickly sealed as court evidence.
If someone were to distribute these pictures in Indiana, they would be within their legal right to do so.