Diplo is facing a civil lawsuit accusing him of violating “revenge porn” laws by sharing sexually-explicit videos and images of a former romantic partner without her permission.
In a complaint filed Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, an unnamed Jane Doe accuser claimed that the DJ (real name Thomas Wesley Pentz) recorded their sexual encounters and shared the materials with others on Snapchat “without plaintiff’s knowledge or consent.”
“Plaintiff brings this action to recover for the emotional and physical injuries she endured because of Diplo’s actions and to make sure no one else is forced to suffer the privacy invasions and physical and mental trauma she felt and continues to feel to this day,” the woman’s attorneys write.
In her complaint, the woman claims she had consensual sexual relationship with the DJ from 2016 to 2023. During that time, she says she occasionally “gave defendant Diplo permission to record them having sex, but never gave him permission to distribute those images and videos to third parties and reiterated that he was not to record them without her explicit consent.”
“Plaintiff trusted defendant Diplo and believed that he would respect her wishes to keep their sexual images and videos confidential and that he would not record them having sex without her consent,” her lawyers write.
But last fall, the woman says she was contacted by someone claiming to be in possession of images and videos of “plaintiff and defendant Diplo having sex.” She says the materials, allegedly shared over Snapchat five years earlier, depicted her “genitals, buttocks, and face,” as well as her voice.
After the incident, Jane Doe says she reported Diplo’s actions to the New York Police Department, which later “issued a warrant for defendant Diplo’s arrest for dissemination of intimate images and/or videos depicting Plaintiff.”
In an email to Billboard, the NYPD confirmed that a report had been filed and that there was an active investigation, but declined to comment on the claims of an arrest warrant: “There is a criminal complaint on file for unlawful dissemination for a suspect with the name of Thomas Pentz which is currently being investigated by NYPD detectives.”
In 2022, when Congress reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, lawmakers created for the first time a federal law banning the disclosure of “intimate” images without the consent of those depicted in them. The lawsuit accuses Diplo of violating that provision, as well as an earlier revenge porn law enacted by the state of California.
Both representatives and an attorney for Diplo did not return requests for comment.
Diplo was previously accused of revenge porn by another woman. In 2020, he was sued by a woman named Shelly Auguste over claims that he had distributed nude photographs of her without permission. His attorneys called it a “smear campaign” and sued her back for stalking, trespassing, and distributing private materials. That litigation is ongoing.
