A Philly man is accused of stealing nude images of women and posting them online. His accusers describe how he exploited their trust.

Catherine Lowther, 30, would wake up in various states of undress, but she never questioned it, thinking she was safe with her partner beside her.

Now she believes she was drugged and placed in compromising positions by Tyler Jones, her partner of five years. He would photograph her as she lay unconscious, she said, and post naked photos of her online, along with images he obtained from a hidden camera.

She only learned that her images had been posted on websites like 4chan, an online message board known for racist and explicit content, when the Philadelphia Police Department’s Special Victims Unit contacted her last year. Lowther said police presented her with the naked images of herself and several other women she did not know, all of whose photos or videos were surreptitiously stolen from personal electronics. Based on the photos, Lowther believes Jones was posting her images throughout most of their relationship, which ended in late 2020.

“He was doing this year one in our relationship,” Lowther said of her ex-husband and the father of her child.

Lowther was not sure she would receive justice for what happened to her, and in some ways, she remains uncertain.

This week, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office charged Jones with dozens of offenses in connection with five alleged victims whose nude images were stolen and posted online with identifying information. The charges include unlawful use of a computer, unlawful duplication, invasion of privacy, and unlawful dissemination. He has been ordered to have no contact with the alleged victims.

”This is another example of cruel and despicable behavior by a repeat offender who continues to weaponize modern technology to expose victims online,” said Attorney General Dave Sunday.

Jones, of Philadelphia, remained in Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility as of Friday and court records did not list an attorney for him. His mother declined a request for comment.

The Inquirer spoke to four of Jones’ alleged victims who reside in Philadelphia and whose cases led to charges. The Inquirer also spoke to a fifth woman who lives in New Jersey and filed a civil lawsuit against Jones last year.

His other accusers largely credit the digital forensic digging the New Jersey woman did as the catalyst that brought their own cases to police attention. Three of the women knew Jones through friends or a spouse.

All experienced what has become a growing problem in the United States, which experts call nonconsensual pornography or image-based sexual abuse. Understanding the scope of the issue is complicated because any data collection, which is limited to begin with, requires victims to know their images have been posted online. Once people become aware that their nude images are being shared without their consent, striking the photos can become a Herculean effort. The emotional and psychological toll can be significant, according to Asia Eaton, a psychology professor at Florida International University and head of research for the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, which looks to understand and end image-based sexual abuse.

“Intimate image abuse affects victims in ways that holistically change their functioning and identities,” Eaton said. “They experience existential threat, social rupture, constrained liberty, and they have trouble navigating the world, because the threat of these images may still be, is still out there.”

In 2013, Jones was accused of hiding his iPhone in a bathroom in Switzerland to film two women and a 17-year-old girl undressing. He then posted the images on pornographic sites without their consent. The incidents occurred in 2011 and 2012, according to Radnor Township police.

Ultimately, Jones pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy and criminal use of a communication device.

Lowther said her mother found clips of the arrest a few months into her relationship with Jones. When she confronted him about it, Lowther said, he cried, telling her he was a “dumb boy in high school” when it happened.

“Looking back on it now, it was a way to avoid the conversation and make me comfort him,” Lowther said.

Tsai Islam, 30, said Jones took a different approach when they began dating, sometime after he had split from Lowther. He was up-front about the conviction, talking about how he had learned from it. He was a father, he told Islam.

“I now understand that he did that to make me trust him,” Islam said, holding back tears after learning of his arrest this week.

Just before they were set to move in together in 2024, Islam’s closest friend confided that someone had been sharing nude images of her on websites like 4chan.

Islam grew up believing people should not be judged “based on their worst actions” because they are capable of growth.

“I realize now that not telling people made it so that I put him in the path of people who he could victimize,” Islam said.

Islam introduced their friend J.G., who asked to be referred to by her initials to avoid harassment, to Jones during their romantic relationship.

J.G. at one point invited the couple over for a get-together, where she said Jones borrowed her phone.

According to a lawsuit J.G. filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey in August, Jones found J.G.’s nude images on her phone and sent them to himself, posting them on forums like Discord, Telegram, and 4chan for about two years before she learned of their existence in December 2023. That’s when another friend told J.G. an unknown Instagram account had offered to share naked images of her.

J.G. went on to discover hundreds of posts with her full name and other identifying information, which made it possible for strangers to harass her online.

A photo of a hand holding her phone in her apartment helped J.G. narrow her list of suspects. Subpoenas to tech companies and digital forensics did the rest.

J.G. hired attorneys who would discover a five-month blitz of “near-nightly” posts of her on 4chan. Working with 4chan and Meta, J.G.’s attorneys said, they obtained IP addresses connected to Jones and posts of nude photographs of at least seven other individuals, including Islam. The posts could be traced as far back as 2013, according to the suit.

J.G. passed the information she had gathered to Philadelphia police.

“I did it,” she whispered into the phone, growing emotional when she learned Jones had been charged.

J.C., 31, was Lowther’s childhood best friend.

J.C., who asked to go by initials to preserve her privacy, has memories of the trio watching fireworks on Lowther’s roof and cooking together. She babysat the couple’s child.

That dynamic changed abruptly as J.C. shared her excitement over a match she had made on dating apps. Jones, she said, held onto her phone longer than was needed to look at the match. She got a Snapchat notification informing her Jones had taken a screenshot of something she had sent him — but she hadn’t sent him anything.

“He had sent himself, via Snapchat, nudes that I had on my phone,” she said. “I freaked out, Catherine freaked out. Catherine then made him delete — I thought — made him delete the pictures.”

A year ago, J.C. and other alleged victims in Philadelphia learned their images had been posted online.

One of those women, 40, said Jones stole nude images of her from her husband’s phone while they worked together at a renovation company. He seemed trustworthy at the time, presenting himself as an animal lover, vegan, and passionate about social justice issues.

He would cat-sit for the couple and had the keys to their house.

“The veneer of a ‘nice guy’ is so clear to me now,” the woman said.

Islam said they sat in an SVU room where police laid out secretly snapped photos and videos of sexual encounters they’d had with Jones.

Despite the deep sense of personal betrayal Islam felt, the sense of guilt for introducing J.G. to Jones drove them to contemplate self-harm.

Jones’ other accusers describe varying levels of impact on their day-to-day lives. Lowther started getting nightmares. J.G. can’t get out of bed some days and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. All describe being less trusting of strangers.

For a while, they thought nothing would come of the police investigation. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office referred the Jones case to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office early this year. Both offices declined to offer specifics as to what prompted the referral.

A study by the Center for Innovative Public Health Research from 2016 found that one in 25 Americans had their images shared without their consent or were threatened with the release of these images.

A 2021 analysis by the National Association of Attorneys General cited strides in combating the practice, including striking websites such as “U Got Posted” and tech companies creating channels to remove such content.

This year, President Donald Trump signed the Take it Down Act, a law that requires websites to take down nonconsensual pornography within 48 hours of the content being reported. The legislation received bipartisan support, and was also backed by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

Still, it’s unclear how effective the law will be in practice, given the nature of how these images spread.

“It may have been downloaded a million other times, uploaded to other websites, and then the takedown process we’re finding is traumatic for victims and costly,” said Eaton, the professor.

Islam said they have discovered this content is easy to find on websites like 4chan that have lax moderation policies on explicit content.

According to J.G.’s lawsuit, people who had previously saved her photos continue to upload them, and in at least 10 instances, people have reached out, trying to “strike up a lewd conversation with her.”

Islam and others hope their experiences can help spark a conversation about what more needs to be done to fight nonconsensual pornography.

“We have to find a way to help legislators understand the severity of these crimes, the prevalence of these crimes, and find ways to catch predators faster,” Islam said.