Maybe...
Ummmm...
Don't hand your selfie porn to people you don't want to have it?
Just sayin'
....Cirdan...
A Texas couple is suing Toyota and one of its car dealerships after one of its staff allegedly stole saucy snaps off their cellphone and emailed them to a swingers website. Last year, pastor Tim Gautreaux and his wife Claire were shopping for a Toyota Prius at a nearby car dealership in Grapevine, Texas. To expedite the sale, …
No that's BS. He didn't hand them anything of the sort. He handed them the phone to look at a document and that is all that should have been looked at. The sales guy was way out of line and there's absolutely no excuse for it, at the very least if the document disappeared off the screen and he happened to see the picture he should have turned a blind eye to it and left it at that. Posting the pictures to the internet is a disgusting breach of privacy and they should sue the slimeball into the ground. You can't take back what is posted, you can't put that cat back into the bag. What you are saying is classic victim blaming and that's an incredibly wrong attitude. They did not "have it coming" no matter what you think.
The question is whether the wife was aware that her naked pictures were on her husband's phone.
If she wasn't, which she might not have been, then she is a blameless victim. Her husband, meanwhile, deserves everything she no doubt did to him as a result of his endangering her, and it serves him right if she divorces him and takes the whole settlement. He may not have given permission to access her pictures, but he was reckless towards his wife's safety.
Comparison would be handing your credit card over and having it's details swiped and sent online. People wouldn't think that's right but some are trying to justify this? Seems really wierd.
I'd never hand over my unlocked phone and I've nothing more worrying than Pokemon Go on it, but if I did I'd expect my Evee and Bulbasaur back unharmed.
I'd never hand over my unlocked phone
Let's look at this from a non-computer comparison.
Instead of just showing the dealer the documents he wanted, the guy handed over his entire filing cabinet with photos, phone call logs, possibly financial information, etc.
That's just careless.
Get real, folks. "Victim blaming"? Stuff it. The victims naively left themselves open to exploitation by assholes. Lesson learned.
In an ideal world we could use this ubiquitous technology to record our most intimate thoughts, desires, and photos without fear. Unfortunately the technology is rife with security flaws and the world is full of assholes who will gleefully exploit them at every opportunity. Paranoia is the rule of the day.
Without victim blaming there is no security. Take a look around your local car park some day and count the signs saying "Leave it on show, expect it to go."
Note that acknowledging the carelessness of the victim is not the same as exonerating the perpetrator. Also in this case the perpetrator was even stupider given the way in which he got caught.
No we are talking victim blaming along the lines of someone's daughter (perhaps yours who knows?) dressing up with a really short skirt showing a bit of flesh to go out for the night and getting raped and someone saying "she had it coming to her dressed like that". That kind of victim blaming, it's wrong arrogant and disgusting.
The guy had some culpability because he had saucy pics of someone else on the phone; he didn't protect them in any way; and he handed the device over to a 3rd party and let him go to another room with it. If it was his own dick pics, then fine, and it's his risk to take; but pretty irresponsible with compromising photos of someone else.
That's not excusing the dickbag car dealer in the slightest.
I don't agree with victim blaming. It's not their fault that the photos were taken and the dealer should be prosecuted. However if you leave your doors unlocked and you get burgled, even if the burgler gets caught you can't undo the fact your house was burgled. Prevention is better than cure.
Don't take dirty pictures on your phone, people.
Mycho is dead on point, and those who had a go at him for "victim blaming" should STFUM
As he pointed out, victim blaming in the way of leaving expensive goods on display in an unattended car is acceptable.
If the story was about someone who handed their entire wallet over to a bangkok back street trader, you would all be agreeing he was a dumbass for doing so.
If the story was about someone who was hacked and had all of their data stolen because they hooked an unpatched XP machine to the interwebz and didn't even run any security software, you would all be agreeing how much of a dumbass he was.
If the story was about someone who was 419'd, you would be laughing at the greedy dumbass.
Now, this buffoon has handed over an electronic device chock full of sensitive, personal info, allowed it to be taken out of his sight by someone he didn't know from a bar of soap, and for some reason, he is exonerated from dumbass-ness?
Yes, the sales droid shouldn't have done anything except look at the documents provided, but he shouldn't have allowed the device out of sight in the first place. Better still, he should have emailed the documents straight from his phone to the sales droid.
I am so fucking tired of hearing the words "victim blaming"!!! I'm not trying to pretend that victim blaming doesn't exist, but its gone far too far.
If I tell a person "don't walk down that dark laneway alone, there have been a few muggings there recently" thats good advice and I'm would be appreciated for it.
However, if I say "don't walk down that laneway alone, a number of people have been raped there recently" suddenly I'm accused of victim blaming. Some feminazi will have my head off because women should be able to wear what they like and walk where they like with impunity.
I agree, all people SHOULD be able to walk wherever and wear whatever they like. The reality is they can't because there are dickheads about that might harm them.
Emmeran,
a question for you, what is a 'photo is', apparently abbreviated to "photo's"?
I mean some mean spirited folk may take such spoutings to be vapid dribble of someone who had a best a tenuous understanding of grammar (and even less of common courtesy).
I look forward to your response.
I regularly have conversations with my children regarding this exact problem. I explain that they should never want any photographs on their phones they don't want out in the wild. This has nothing to do with right and wrong. But an example of a conversation at breakfast this morning. We were discussing with our 13 year old daughter and 14 year old son about their friends using snus, drinking and vaping. I explained that while I don't condone these activities, under no circumstance are they to ever walk home alone or use a normal taxi while drunk. They are to pick up the phone and have me come get them or send an Über to them since it's safer than a random taxi being driven by the owner's brother-in-law. Also, they are never ever ever allowed to take a sip of a drink they haven't seen poured or have had out of their eyesight for even a second.
It is not right I should have to have these conversations with two children. But it's right that I do. Just because people shouldn't do bad things doesn't mean they won't.
So, while I agree with you, your point is overly altruistic and not meaninful because these things will happen and the best advice is... don't store pictures like these on any electronic devices.
Oh... and damn... lucky pastor.
The FBI does not have that right either. They, and other law enforcement officers may apply for warrants, as may their counterparts in many other countries. If the application is granted they have the right to conduct a search as the warrant specifies.
As for the article, it is not clear why the plaintiffs think they have a basis to seek not only compensation, but enrichment, from the dealer who employed the alleged perpetrator or, even more remote, from Toyota itself. The employee's act is said to be a criminal offense, and the agency's sales director has been charged. Dealership liability may depend on details like whether the accused had previous history of similar behavior and whether they knew of it, and if they did not, whether they had done reasonable (probably a jury question) pre-hire due diligence. Toyota's liability may be limited by their relationship to the dealer and details in the documents that govern the relationship. Toyota certainly will not want to set a precedent for future similar claims, but given their likely rarity might end up negotiating a settlement with sealed terms for some fraction of the amount demanded.
As for the article, it is not clear why the plaintiffs think they have a basis to seek not only compensation, but enrichment, from the dealer who employed the alleged perpetrator or, even more remote, from Toyota itself
What could be nice is for Toyota to counter-sue for things like loss of reputation.. Or maybe they just need to let these people know that Toyota's lawyers each charge$10k/hr, there's 20 of them, and if the couple loses against Toyota then they will be paying full costs?
Sue the bugger who stole the pics (if he did, maybe there was something else going on here? Especially given the 5minute time frame, the picture being left open (really, I'm doing something dodgy, I know enough to find and get the pictures off you phone inside 5 minutes, and I'm stupid enough to leave one open?) , but leave the other innocents alone. Or, hopefully, they will sue you and leave you ruined.
Being a pastor, he should know better!
> Sue the bugger who stole the pics
Well because at the time he is alleged to have stolen the pictures he was working on behalf of the Toyota dealer and it was as "the dealer" he asked for and was given access to the phone.
If he'd give the guy his phone to look at in a bar social then no he shouldn't be allowed to sue the guys employer.
Well because at the time he is alleged to have stolen the pictures he was working on behalf of the Toyota dealer and it was as "the dealer" he asked for and was given access to the phone..
Alleged to have stolen the pics. Good bet he didn't. Story stinks. Hope Toyota makes sure any gains this couple get are lost in a counter suit. And then some.
Toyota was not there. Dealer probably followed "due diligence" in the hiring of this person. Hope you become a boss and someone working for you does something wrong which, on the scale of bad things you can do to someone, really is pretty minor. (Yes, I blame the pastor for having pics of his wife on his phone and strongly suspect it wasn't so much "innocent victim" as "dirty scoundrel trying to scam a stupidly litigious system").
No one but the person who sent the pics to the site was responsible. Oh, and if it wasn't the pastor who sent the pictures to that site, then he was also at least 99.999% responsible.
If you are not directly or knowingly involved in the commission of a crime (or whatever the civil version is as in this case), you are not guilty. If you hire a convicted criminal to work for you, knowing their crimes but having reasonable grounds to expect decent behaviour you're not guilty. It is disgusting that the US still lets this sort of thing continue, and even more disgusting that supposedly intelligent people actually call for innocent parties to be held accountable for someone else's actions!
And despite all that, since he is going after innocent parties in all this (the dealership and Toyota, unlikely they had any clue that the accused would act like this), the pastor should, before anything else, quit his position as pastor. There's a whole swathe of versus that would speak against his suit, the position he's put his wife in, his carelessness etc. (Yes, like all Christians I sin, and several times a day most days - but I am not someone claiming such a position of responsibility and integrity!)
"The FBI does not have that right either. They, and other law enforcement officers may apply for warrants, as may their counterparts in many other countries. If the application is granted they have the right to conduct a search as the warrant specifies."
Seriously Tom? If you think that is the case please do a search for "Snowden" and read the many articles written on the topic by Greenwald. Better yet, anyone who thinks the government and it's agents, including the FBI, DEA, all the way down to local police and DA's with (search term) "Parallel Construction" are following any laws they can or are told to ignore you have a lot of reading to catch up on.
If you think laws and rights are determining the actions being taken by today's democratic governments you need to do a lot of reading, lots and lots, just to catch up.
I don't claim to have read all the "Snowden" and Greenwald articles, but have read enough of them to know they do not speak much to the FBI, DEA, or even DHS.
Parallel construction, presumably intended to conceal intelligence sources and methods, is not by itself contrary to law as far as I am aware, any more than is concealing the identity of confidential informants who provide information to justify warrant issue. The NSA is permitted to refer to domestic law enforcement authorities information obtained by lawful (under US law) foreign intelligence surveillance. The articles that "revealed" these activities were unfortunately vague about the source of the information and the conditions under which it was obtained. They also did not make clear whether the authors did not know or knew and elected to leave it unmentioned.
Ultimately, the decision to issue a warrant rests with a judge who is at least nominally independent of the prosecutor and other law enforcement agents. They may rubber stamp the application, but it at least is a (possibly virtual) piece of paper that, in the US at least, can later be challenged in court if the warrant turns up information that leads to prosecution.
Looks like Tom has been vindicated, at least in the UK as the Reg has reported that Parallel Construction is, or may be, a legal tactic to ensure convictions and hide sources and methods. Lets keep in mind what that means. The idea of needing warrants and oversight still exists but only for crimes and activities that are not of interest to the government or it's agencies.
Agencies in some places are not in any way bound by such laws and can, legally in some places, pretend to have used those laws to hide what they are doing and how they are doing it.
These same agencies can, and have already, lied to elected representatives (in the USA the Congress) and those in charge of overseeing their activity. This creates a shadow government that not only does not answer to the people or it's representatives but can and have had people imprisoned with created evidence.
BTW keep reading about Snowden's revelations, even drug dealers are sitting in prison due to parallel construction methods, I say drug dealers but we really only have the word of those who created the evidence as to their guilt or innocence on the charges.
"Why do these incidents almost always happen in either Texas or Florida?"
Because they almost always involve good ol' virtuous Christian preachers who have a direct line to the big guy in the sky, and those places got more than plenty of them.
And 1 million bucks in damages? Isn't greed supposed to be one of the deadliest sins for these types? Something about rich men being less likely to enter the kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle? I guess he wants the bucks more than the salvation of his eternal soul.
Still, at least it was his wife, cos he'd never have dared sue for the loot if the photos recorded some of the more ususl antics of these types.
Last time I recall Toyota NA paying out big time was when one of their managers in Florida promised his staff a new Toyota as a bonus but instead gave them a Toy Yoda, claiming they had misheard.
Would have though a pastor would be of the forgiving kind when it comes to million dollar lawsuits ..
Rubbish.
it was one person in a HOOTERS bar who THOUGHT she had won a "toyota" but was given a "toy yoda".
It wasnt a presesent to "his staff" at all.
Christ, a five second search would have saved you all the embarrasement of being wrong.
http://laughingsquid.com/woman-thought-she-won-a-toyota-not-a-toy-yoda/
"I doubt Toyota USA will be need to defend because they do not manage the dealership which is likely a franchise. "
This is the US, lawyers go for the people with the most money and rely on the jury to do the rest.
(Mind you, over here a good solicitor will tell you not to go after someone who hasn't got enough money to pay your costs rather than try to flog you no win no fee insurance.)
I'm shocked, shocked that you would even suggest that one of America's fine pastors, who selflessly devote themselves to religion would even consider such a stunt.
You know as well as I that he would surely give any damages he received to charity anyway, right?
I'll get my coat, as she clearly forgot hers ....
His name is Matthew Luke Thomas. He, allegedly, stole pix from a pastor. He's naked for two writers of the Gospels and an apostle, and he does naughty things to one of m'man Jesus' fishers of men. And said fisher of men is also named for an apostle. It's just too bad that wifey isn't named Mary.
being stuck with multiple saints' names myself (hey! Irish!) I noticed the names first thing.
@Captain Badmouth/James O'Shea
O'Shea was a saint?
Here's a rather tenuous link from O'Shea to another heavenly being
Milo O'Shea played Durand Durand in the film Barbarella. Barbarella (Jane Fonda). is rescued by Pygar, the Angel.
icon: Paris for title role in a remake of Barbarella, with extended scenes in the Orgasmostron on the DVD additional features
Used to work in a T-Mobile shop. Part of my day-to-day back then was to send phones out for repair, and to ensure there were no memory cards/sim cards still in the phone - to make sure they wouldn't be lost.
I hadn't been there long, and when I first checked these phones out, my boss, and his sidekick asst manager were always asking me to make sure I leave the mem cards in the office for safekeeping. As an inexperienced newbie I obliged without thought, until one day it occurred to me that they really should be using the locked cubbyholes we use when a phone is returned to us, ready to be given to the customer.
Turns out that every night after locking up, if there were any cards in the office, those two would lock themselves in the office, and go through the cards, copying anything they found of interest, and well, I don't know what they did with what they found... I prefer to not think about it.
Of course, 15 years down the line, I'm wiser and sadly, even more aware that private data never remains private. Even so, it still irritates me when people say 'don't take selfies in the first place'. Why not? Just because someone CAN go though your phone and wank to anything they find suitable, doesn't mean that they should. And coming on here and reiterating that it is going to happen because 'it just does' simply reinforces in those that do, that it's perfectly alright and acceptable.
"Even so, it still irritates me when people say 'don't take selfies in the first place'. Why not? Just because someone CAN go though your phone and wank to anything they find suitable, doesn't mean that they should."
And here we reach the crux of the matter. You are quite entitled to take pervy (or not) pictures with a wiling partner. You also are entitled to expect that random strangers won't go through your phone ransacking the data.
However what expectation of privacy can you expect if you voluntarily hand over said phone for somebody else to try to find something held on it, and then let it go out of your sight? The good pastor would not have given the dealer his house keys and said "go rummage around and find the papers yourself", would he?
"However what expectation of privacy can you expect if you voluntarily hand over said phone for somebody else to try to find something held on it, and then let it go out of your sight?"
It was handed over for one purpose and one purpose only. There is every reason to expect privacy. Even from a car salesman. Would you also expect that the salesman might have made used it to call his aunt in Australia and cousin in Ireland?
"However what expectation of privacy can you expect if you voluntarily hand over said phone for somebody else to try to find something held on it, and then let it go out of your sight?"
You have to assume that people generally act in good faith (because most people do), or else you can't live your life in a pleasant way.
What happened here is a worse case scenario and quite unexpected. Not only did he look at the pictures, he mailed them, to a swingers website no less.
What I never understood however, is why anyone would let someone take naked pictures of them. Because there are a million reasons why that might backfire.
"What I never understood however, is why anyone would let someone take naked pictures of them. Because there are a million reasons why that might backfire."
A brief study of the Internet will show that there are plenty of women who not only let people take pictures of them naked but are quite happy to let other people see them. Some of them make a lot of money out of it. If you live in some curtain-twitching suburb or work for the Jehovah's Witnesses there might be a problem, but people in a more advanced bit of the country who aren't in occupations where "respectability" isn't demanded - may simply not give a hoot. We aren't necessarily controlled by our biology but there are good evolutionary reasons why women and men go in for sexual display, and we shouldn't be surprised if people do it where permitted.
It took the security services long enough to realise that, if you're worried about gay politicians etc. being blackmailed, the answer is to stop worrying about whether people are gay or not. "We have compromising pictures of you, gospodin..".."Ooh, can I have some copies for my Tumblr site?"
In the same way, a pastor who takes pictures of his wife in the bath - I imagine that's a positive relief to his bishop or board of overseers. That's not what people worry about.
The internet is a magnet for worst case scenarios. I speak from experience. A year of harassment, threats, and sex ads in our names (but no naked pics because we don't take any), culminating with a swinger ON OUR DOORSTEP answering a v.pervy ad on Backpage. That was enough for a court order.
Fortunately the offender was not anonymous. The imminent threat of jail convinced her to stop, at least for now.
Trust no one. Tell people only what they need to know. Keep everyone you meet at arm's length until you've known them for months-years. Sooner or later, you too will meet a random crazy.
Going for a walk alone in the wrong part of town is going to result in a mugging or worse. Leaving your iPad on the back seat of your car in some poorly lit car park is going to result in a smashed window and no more iPad.
None of this excuses or reinforces the behaviour of the perpetrators. It's simply a recognition that there are injustices in this world. We can chew gum and walk here.
> Leaving your iPad on the back seat of your car in some poorly lit car park is going to result in a smashed window and no more iPad.
> None of this excuses or reinforces the behaviour of the perpetrators.
If you can afford an iphone/ipad you're lucky. If you can afford a car on the back seat of which to leave it lying, you're luckier. If you have all that and a hot sexy wife of whom to take naked pictures of with it, you're practically the luckiest man alive.
Such nice things are the subject of intense greed, lust, and envy. You must protect them if you hope to keep them.
Oops... Wrong thought in this case :)
Dunno what the right thought should be: Do not give an unlocked phone to a stranger out of your sight? Shopping for Pri(ck|us) ran into a Pri(ck|us)?
Actually I know it: "If you make a picture which you would not like to get outside the house, sync it off the device as soon as possible and keep it in the house. No phone, no mobile devices, no cloud".
In any case, it does look like the days of paper documents are definitely not over.
So if Bob keeps some saucy snaps of wifey Alice in his briefcase along with bank statements and wotnot, and Mr Saleslizard asks to see the paperwork, would Bob *really* hand over the whole case with "Sure, take it in the back office there and help yourself while I grab a coffee"?
People's blithe ignorance of security and their failure to understand privacy never ceases to astonish.
If the government stated it would henceforth open, read and copy every single piece of citizens' postal mail, there would be uproar.
If the government insisted that you would be watched every time you visited a library and that every book and periodical you picked up or read would be noted and recorded, there would be a storm of outrage.
But the government *has* done it, electronically - and barely a peep is heard.
Staring glassily at the shiny i-gadgets which they have bought with borrowed money in vain pursuit of instant happiness, the human herd abandons sense, dignity and free will, knowing little and caring less ....
Gautreaux is married and his thoughts are about his wife, that's about as biblically pure as you can get.
It's Thomas that has impure thoughts, likely falling under the cardinal sins of Lust and Envy. He's the one that needs to pray, hopefully under the baleful eye of Gautreaux.
"Gautreaux is married and his thoughts are about his wife, that's about as biblically pure as you can get."
Lust - even for a spouse - is considered sinful in many Christian organisations. It is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. According to their dogma - sex with women is only for procreation. The Original Sin in the Garden of Eden is a fundamental part of their identity.
As summed up in the 1971 satirical novel by John Wells and John Fortune.
"A woman for duty / A boy for pleasure / But a melon for ecstasy."
As summed up in the 1971 satirical novel by John Wells and John Fortune.
"A woman for duty / A boy for pleasure / But a melon for ecstasy."
They took that from an old Turkish proverb.
Only reason I know is that I had a friend at college who used to quote it all the time.
I can't stand melons.
"They took that from an old Turkish proverb."
Not sure if that is as a result of the book calling it "an old Turkish proverb" - rather than there actually being one. It is possible that the melon might have been the literary addition. The "Dancing Boys" were a feature of the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople (Istanbul) is mentioned in several old travel books.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrnvC98bNSoC&pg=PT184&lpg=PT184&dq=constantinople+dancing+boys&source=bl&ots=16hvR7jhwD&sig=cFtFiDKDlioKUyQlS58N_09lWFw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihvKWn-9fQAhXPFsAKHemOBloQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=constantinople%20dancing%20boys&f=false
> Lust - even for a spouse - is considered sinful in many Christian organisations. It is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. According to their dogma - sex with women is only for procreation.
What about your dogma, buddy? Do you believe everything you read? Do you also believe "many" Muslim organizations condone terrorism and sex slavery? A few outliers are not representative of the mainstream religion.
Christian attitudes toward sex are totally normal in reality. We're all sinners, that's the fundamental tenet of Christianity. Unlike present day Twitter morality, Christianity allows for people to fuck up now and then without being condemned for eternity. Murderers can be forgiven and do great things. Prostitutes have actually become saints.
Lusting for one's wife? That's way the hell down at the bottom of the naughty list.
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This is a criminal act by individuals and absolutely nothing to do with Toyota or the employers.The criminal justice system will deal with them, not ambulance chasing lawyers and leeching clients.
So much for Christian forgiveness, I doubt the charity plate will see any of the payout, God Squad hypocrites.
Companies are legal entities in themselves and since the employees are representing the company said company is legally responsible. The Directors are the named individuals who's duty it is to ensure the company operates within the law, and Directors can go to jail if a company commits a criminal act.
So both the individual and the employer can be prosecuted for the criminal acts. It's very important that this concept exists, otherwise unscrupulous business owners could encourage their business to break the law with impunity.
The level of punishment or compensation is a different issue
I had to write and send the policy at work to remind everyone that we were not the least bit interested in seeing photos on their cell phones when we worked on them. I actually did say "for the love of all that's holy, please do not take naked selfies with your company issued phone".
Naturally every executive wanted to know who it was and we allowed each of them to bribe us with some sort of food or beverage and promptly told them that they were the culprit, at which point we were re-bribed to keep that info secret.
In the end we had free lunch for about a month and people either stopped taking photo's or learned to clear the device.
I wonder how many sexters have "ouch" moments because of the difference between Apple's "Camera Roll" versus "My Photo Stream". AFAICT, what's in the former stays on the device, what's on the latter goes to all of one's devices via the Cloud.
I also mourn the demise of Philately, a harmless outlet for collecting mania. So the salesman saw a risque pic. He probably already had a collection of risque pics--and better ones--including pics that claimed plausibly to be of a preacher's wife. There was no reason for him to do this, just as there is no reason for a dog to pee in the living room.
Pray tell us: how many hours a day do you spend practicing Christianity? Have you noticed any improvement?
Not enough, lots of improvement over my life but last little while have slipped back some.
But I know I have nothing to worry about. God is love, He understands, and my Dad forgives His kids when they make mistakes. No matter how big those mistakes are. There is nothing you can do that can separate you forever. (As a gay person who once was, well, let's just say violently anti-Christian, I know that first hand!)
The story, as presented sound good except for a couple of things, the phone had to be out of the his hands long enough for the dealer to look though the photo album, find the pictures and then copy them off the phone ... this is going to take a while since we can assume that initially the dealer didn't know that they existed. Finding them and then copying via NFC takes a while - a USB connection would be faster but requires a few more steps, copying a bunch of photos takes a while - it's not instant and realistically, what sort of document could the pastor have had on the phone that the dealer needed to see that badly?
There's a smell about this - I'm a little suspicious about the explanation, it could be that hubby had been posting the picture on the site without his wife's knowledge and then, when caught, blamed the dealership or some similar thing ... just 'cos a man of the cloth says it's so doesn't make it so.
Let's keep an open mind about this.
It's in the story as posted: the pastor let the salesgeek out of his sight for ~5min /with his unlocked phone/. Plenty of time for a USB connection & d/l of 'pictures' or whatever the directory was named.. prolly enough time for a wifi connection if quick & a decent throughput
According to the report in the source, Dallas News, the pictures were sent by email from the phone, then deleted. The claim, further, is that by the grace of the God of Apps, one of the pastor's apps backed up the sent messages before their deletion, thus preserving the evidence. The only thing that points to three-saint-names, though is that the police are reported to have found that a person of similar name has an account on the swinger site.
At last report, Thomas has not been convicted, which would help the lawsuit, although it is not a requirement as the standard of proof in the civil suit is much less than required for a criminal conviction. For now, there is reason to withhold judgment in the matter.
"I see there's some heavy down-voting going on for those who question the validity of the story."
It'll be Generation Snowflake and the SJWs again. I'm quite sure that if you ignore these people long enough, all their pent up moral outrage causes them to spontaneously combust. ;)
Neither the dealership nor Toyota should be penalized for something which clearly was done by one of their employees in violation of the terms of his employment. But that employee should go to prison for many years and be placed on the sex offenders registry when, or if, he gets out. And, of course, he can be sued for millions of dollars, but he might not have that much money.
Yes, people should be careful with their smartphones, but it is also reasonable to trust people to act in a professional manner when they are working on behalf of a respectable business.
#1 The person who (allegedly) stole the pictures. Not Toyota, not the place he worked it (though it someone else can be proven to have knowingly been involved...)
#2 The people who left the pictures on the phone, easily accessible. If it was only out of his sight for 5 minutes then the pics were quick and easy to locate and remove.
Perhaps, given the wonderful "helpful" stuff on smartphones that automatically steals backs up your data to some dodgy cloud company google/apple, it wasn't actually the Toyota person?
Hope he gets off anyway.. Or maybe he already has?
Something stinks a bit to me. Although I don't use smartphones often.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the alleged perp only had the phone a few mins and was able to find the pics, upload them to another place (over either a car-dealers wifi or mobe connection in Grapevine, Texas!1), supposedly show the phone to his boss for the document that was there (not mentioned in the article, haven't read further), then get it back to the couple. He was smart enough to do all that, yet stupid enough to leave a picture "on top" rather than closing out the thing.
To expedite the sale, Gautreaux had documents already approving him for a loan for the vehicle stored on his smartphone,
I'm not from over there so this could be wrong but... Wouldn't it be normal to have the actual loan papers on you, rather than just a picture of them? Perhaps this is why "Matthew Luke Thomas" took the phone to show someone else, he would've expected actual paper rather than a picture (which could be doctored as well, fairly trivial especially for a small screen - harder to see any suspect artefacts, and not hard to doctor an image without leaving such things).
All this is just supposition of course, there could be a lot more not mentioned in the article. But I'm starting to wonder how much this guy really was cuplable, and how much was the couple trying to scam someone.
As someone else mentioned...Fairly good scam and, for once, making me wish I lived in the US. Wait.. President Elect Trump.. Nah, stuff that. Not even for a $billion!
1Actually, I have no idea what coms speeds are available there, but something tells me "crap" is the word.
How about this for a plausible explanation:
Salesman looks at picture of document, then swipes to see if there's another page. Instead of more loan document pages, he gets Mrs Gautreaux in the bath. He decides to tease the Pastor by handing the phone back with the nudie shot on show. Gautreaux doesn't see the joke. Either through vindictiveness or to deflect his wife's wrath, he sends the pictures to the swinger site and lays the blame on Thomas. Mrs Pastor is now even madder. Escalation via lawyer ensues. Million-dollar law suit results.
I would expect this isn't the first time this perp performed this sort of thing...5 minutes is a long time with just a little bit of practice...particularly if the phone in question was the umbiquitous iPhone and the perp had used one before.
It also feels a lot like the sort of things that often happen around some car dealership sales teams. Personally having seen trade in keys tossed on the roof of the dealership so that it could be claimed "They were lost" to keep the prospect in the booth...this sounds a lot like retaliation from a salesman or sales manager to a prospect who could not be closed, or turned down the snake oil (upholstery treatment - $.40 to dealership, $249.00 to the prospect) in the F&I office, or a dozen other minor scams.
Toyota INC/CO/LTD ended up on a sex offender registryI mean companies are people now right?
Would be interesting to see.. Do those on such a register have to visit their local plod or live in certain areas etc? Will we see all Toyota dealerships suddenly relegated to setting up under bridges that are x miles from schools? Will Toyota car GPS's be made to track every driver's move, alert local plod if they get to close to/stray from certain areas?
And what of self drive cars? Will they be locked up for taking the wrong route and passing a school or something?
(NB: My knowledge of such things largely comes from El Reg, please forgive me if I am way off the mark!)
I think we have to remember that most of us on here are very tech savvy. Most people have no idea about security and what not to do with their devices. I am sure a lot of people believe that having a four number code on their phones is enough. The number of people who think the drawing a shape method is safer than numbers amazes me. You can actually see the grease stain of the shape if you hold it in the light at the right angle.
So saying it is the victim’s fault doesn’t cut it with me. We should be able to trust people we deal with and when they betray that trust they should be held fully accountable.
As for the document, it could be an email of confirmation from the dealership’s finance company and only the reference numbers etc. was required. The scummy dealer could have claimed that he needed to check it with details he has on his PC and done the deed.
As for the document, it could be an email of confirmation from the dealership’s finance company and only the reference numbers etc. was required. The scummy dealer could have claimed that he needed to check it with details he has on his PC and done the deed.
Grounds for trust should be strong, I understand that. The account of the construction of Solomon's temple mentions that no one queried the accounting of the workers, they were trustworthy and didn't need it. But for many those days have passed, and our modern tech makes it easy and convenient to carry personal data/pictures with us, but also easy for someone to steal said data. Especially if it really was done in 5 minutes or less.
As to the document, the article does state the phone contained a photo of a paper document. If it was an email from the dealership or their FC, then surely the email would've been on the dealership's on computers.
I was just thinking the same thing...
Although i cant defend what the dealer did, i do have to conceed that she was easy on the eye looking at the pic attached to the story, so i see the possibiliy of temptation...
What is not mentioned, is did she know hubby had the snaps saved on there in the first place, maybe the two year delay was her venting at hubby.
Dumb to take nude pix with a phone.
Dumb to hand that phone to a stranger who took it out of sight.
Dumb of the two fuckwits to go through the phone.
Criminal and dumb to do anything with those photos, especially what was done.
Dumbest of all to leave the evidence lying around when handing back the phone.
Everyone dumb, but car guys too dumb to live.
No good guys in this story.