By ZEINAB NAJM
Times-Herald Newspapers
HEIGHTS — Dearborn Heights native Garret Ross, 23, was charged in a revenge porn case in Illinois March 19.
Ross has played as a forward for the Chicago Blackhawks’ American Hockey League affiliate Rockford IceHogs since he was drafted in the fifth round of the NHL draft in 2012.
The initial incident occurred in Sycamore, Ill., after Ross allegedly circulated a photo of a woman engaged in a sexual act in August without her consent.
If convicted of the felony, he could face up to three years in prison. Ross was suspended indefinitely from the IceHogs on March 19.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. April 22.
Under the revenge porn law, passed in June by the state of Illinois, “a person commits non-consensual dissemination of private sexual images when he or she intentionally disseminates an image of another person … who is at least 18 years of age; and who is identifiable from the image itself or information displayed in connection with the image and who is engaged in a sexual act or whose intimate parts are exposed in whole or in part.”
The law also addresses the obtaining of an image “under circumstances in which a reasonable person would know or understand that the image was to remain private and knows or should have known that the person in the image has not consented to the dissemination.”
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected])