
#HOLLI LEHUANANI THOMETZ INSTALL#

"So I just kind of let the search results go," she says.

"That was what Ryan wanted me to be doing," she says, "spending all my life instead of being successful, getting my PhD, and putting my energy into a healthy relationship. Ultimately, Jacobs gave up battling websites to take down the photos, only for them to pop back up a week later. When she began dating someone new, she received email threats. "Everything just started snowballing," she says. Her university bosses were sent emails with the photos and a video of Jacobs titled "Masturbation 201 by Professor Holli Thometz." Jacobs even had to cancel a conference presentation when Seay allegedly encouraged internet trolls to show up and proposition her. Jacobs' life became a nightmare as Seay allegedly posted photos and a video, which spread like wildfire. I'm paying him a lot of money, so I should probably listen to him.") (Contacted by Riptide, Seay said, "I would love to talk about it, but my lawyer has given me a gag order. "I think he was pretending to go through the same thing so we would reconnect again on some level." "He was the only one with those photos," Jacobs says. "Somebody has changed your profile pic to a nude photo of you." When Jacobs called Seay, he denied involvement, even saying he had been a victim of the same prank. "You need to get on Facebook right away," the friend said. "I completely trusted him." When the couple split in 2008, it was a "normal breakup," Jacobs remembers.īut on New Year's Day 2009, a friend called to say Jacobs' Facebook account had been hacked. "We shared photos to keep the intimacy alive," Jacobs explains. When Jacobs moved to Miami for graduate school, they dated long-distance. They began going out in 2005 after Jacobs returned from college. Jacobs, then named Holli Thometz, met Ryan Seay at Hillsborough High School in Tampa. "I wish would take this issue seriously." "Somebody is trying to ruin your life, maybe even drive you to suicide by posting these images," she tells Riptide. Bills to enact tougher penalties for revenge porn failed in Tallahassee this year, but Jacobs says her fight will continue. She's sued her ex-boyfriend and several sites and created her own advocacy page - to lobby Florida lawmakers.

Photos and videos were even sent to her bosses.Īfter futilely battling for four and a half years to remove them, Jacobs is now coming out of the shadows. They soon went viral, appearing on hundreds of so-called revenge porn sites along with her name, phone number, and email address.

That's when naked photos of the Florida International University PhD student first popped up online.
