The aspiring actor liked orgies and bondage. He was HIV-positive but preferred unprotected sex. Between October and March , more than 1, men accepted invitations to meet Herrick in person.
They showed up at his West Harlem apartment in droves, and on several occasions broke into the building. But Herrick had not matched with any of these men online. His dating profilesβand practically everything in themβwere bogus.
His vengeful ex-boyfriend, Oscar Juan Carlos Gutierrez whom Herrick had met on a dating app , had created the accounts. Herrick eventually got an order of protection against Gutierrez, but the torrent of uninvited houseguests continued. It took almost a year for Gutierrez to be arrested on criminal charges. He was sentenced to prison for criminal contempt, identity theft, and stalking in November Gutierrez weaponized Grindr and other dating apps to carry out his abuse. According to court records, Grindr ignored roughly pleas from Herrick and his loved ones to remove the fraudulent profiles and block Gutierrez from making new ones.
Two other gay dating apps took swift action to remove fake profiles, Herrick says. In , as Herrick pursued criminal charges against Gutierrez, he also sued Grindr. He wanted the company to disable the bogus profiles, but he also sought to hold Grindr liable for both facilitating and failing to stop the harassment against him. None, the judge concluded. TikTok invoked the statute in a legal filing claiming it is not responsible for a viral trend that encouraged users to choke themselves until they lost consciousness some died.
Snapchat has cited to dismiss a lawsuit contending it is responsible for fentanyl deaths resulting from drug deals brokered on its platform. Omegle, a website that randomly pairs users for private video chats, argued in a court document that the statute immunized it from a lawsuit alleging it was liable for allowing an adult man to extract pornographic imagery from an year-old girl over the span of three years.
