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Summary: Former Playmate Dani Mathers pled no contest to body-shaming an elderly woman at the gym.Â
On Wednesday, body-shaming model, Dani Mathers, pled no contest to misdemeanor invasion of privacy. She famously snapped a secret picture of a naked elderly woman who was at her gym, and she uploaded it to Snapchat for her hundreds of thousands of fans. While Mathers’ seemed to want her followers to laugh at her twisted humor, she was immediately met with scorn and eventually a visit from the Los Angeles Police Department.
Accepting a deal, Mathers pled no contest and was sentenced to three years of probation along with 30 hours of graffiti removal service, according to CNN. This was a lighter sentence than what she could have been given if the case had gone to trial–six months in jail. Considering the very public backlash she had received from her act, a trial would most certainly have led to a guilty conviction.
In July of last year, former Playboy Playmate Mathers stealthily took a picture of a naked 71-year-old woman who was entering the shower of an L.A. Fitness gym in Universal City, California. Mathers uploaded the picture to Snapchat with the caption “If I can’t unsee this then you can’t either,” as well as a selfie of herself looking horrified and covering her mouth.
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Mathers’ fanbase immediately condemned the picture, and the model gave what many said was a weak apology.
“I’ve chosen to do what I do for a living because I love the female body and I know that body-shaming is wrong and it’s not what I am about,” Mathers said last year. “It’s not the type of person I am.”
Following the shaming, Mathers was fired from her job as a radio host and she was forever banned at L.A. Fitness.
On Wednesday, Mathers’ lawyer Thomas Mesereau told the press that the model was remorseful.
“She never thought this would come out like this. Never intended to hurt anyone,” Mesereau told CNN.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said that this case sent a powerful message that Los Angeles would not tolerate body shaming.
“The message today is clear: body shaming is not tolerated in the City of Los Angeles,” Feuer said. “That’s crucial, because every day that picture lives online is another day of humiliation.”
Body shaming and posting pictures of strangers to mock them has become a common occurrence thanks to the internet and social media. Because of this, California lawmakers are using the Mathers’ case to draft a bill that will increase penalties for people who take and distribute media without a second party’s permission in order to bully them.
California has already passed similar but more targetted internet content legislation that forbids people from posting sexually explicit pictures or videos of their ex-lovers, a phenomenon known as “revenge porn.”
California’s shaming legislation, SB 784, will give a fine of up to $1,000 to anyone who secretly takes and publishes images or video of someone who is nude or partially nude. The proposed bill will entitle victims to financial restitution and will give them the right to have the material scrubbed from the internet and out of public distribution.
“This country has a growing problem of bullying through body-shaming on social media that needs to be addressed,” Senator Cathleen Galgiani said to CNN.
- Related: Dani Mathers Hires Attorney Tom Mesereau
- Related: LAPD Find Dani Mathers’ Body-Shaming VictimÂ
- Related: Playboy Model Published Photo of Unsuspecting Woman at the GymÂ
Source: CNN
Photos courtesy of Playboy and Snapchat
