Dani Mathers apologised months ago after provoking outrage by posting a photo on social media of a nude 70-year-old woman in the shower area of a Los Angeles fitness centre. The 2015 Playboy Playmate of the Year was also banned from LA Fitness gyms, suspended indefinitely from her gig on a popular Los Angeles radio station and excoriated online, forcing her to go into social media hibernation.
But the 29-year-old's punishment won't end there.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed criminal charges against Mathers on Friday. She faces a single misdemeanour count of invasion of privacy, Feuer said in a statement.
If convicted, Mathers faces up to six months in jail and a $US1000 fine. Her arraignment is scheduled for November 28 in Los Angeles Superior Court.
"Body shaming is humiliating, with often painful, long-term consequences," Feuer said. "It mocks and stigmatises its victims, tearing down self-respect and perpetuating the harmful idea that our unique physical appearances should be compared to air-brushed notions of 'perfect.'
"What really matters is our character and humanity. While body-shaming, in itself, is not a crime, there are circumstances in which invading one's privacy to accomplish it can be. And we shouldn't tolerate that."
Prosecutors accuse Mathers of surreptitiously taking the photo in the gym's shower area. They claim the lewd photograph of the naked 70-year-old was uploaded to Mathers' Snapchat account, where it ended up on her story.
The caption: "If I can't unsee this then you can't either."
"It pictured Mathers, sporting weight-lifting gloves and a Nike tank top, covering her mouth in false-shock," The Washington Post reported in July. "What resulted was likely thousands looking at this woman's nude body, fat-shamed by a blond Playmate, on Mathers's public Snapchat."
Mathers's act was illegal under California law.
A section of the state's penal code revised in 2014 said it's a misdemeanour to look "with the intent to invade the privacy of a person" into places like a changing room, where a person has "a reasonable expectation of privacy," with a camera. Under this law, it's illegal generally to distribute an image of the "intimate body part or parts" of another person "without the consent of or knowledge of that other person."
"There is no question that by her own caption that she intended to shame this woman and that's the nub of the case," CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman said.
"You are not permitted in California to take photos in specific rooms where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy - they're bathrooms, dressing rooms, changing rooms, tanning booths and rooms like that," Klieman added.
The 70-year-old woman photographed by Mathers is prepared to testify, CBS reported.
In addition to banning Mathers from all 800-plus of its gyms, LA Fitness notified the Los Angeles Police Department that Mathers photographed a member in its locker room. That's strictly prohibited, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"Her behaviour is appalling and puts every member at risk of losing their privacy," said Jill Greuling, the company's executive vice president of operations.
"Our written rules are very clear: Cellphone usage and photography are prohibited in the locker rooms," Greuling added. "This is not only our rule, but common decency."
Los Angeles Police Capt. Andrew Neiman said the department received a report of "illegal distribution" of the image from the international gym chain. Detectives from the sexual assault section of LAPD's west division investigated.
Mathers apologised in July, then deleted her Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, according to the New York Daily News.
Before she did, she recorded a Snapchat video in which she admitted she'd erred.
"I know that body-shaming is wrong and that's not what I'm about," Mathers said in the video, according to CBS. "That photo was supposed to be part of a personal conversation with a girlfriend and because I am new to Snapchat I really didn't realise I had posted it and that's a huge mistake."
Klieman told CBS that Mathers' excuse may not hold up in court.
"For heaven's sake, this elderly woman, we should be applauding her," the legal analyst said. "She's at the gym trying to make herself better. You can rest assured that this is a case that is really going to cause deterrence for not only the person who took the picture but also for others."
The Washington Post