'Maximum hurt': Washington County woman sues ex for sending nude images to hundreds of co-workers

Selena Ball and Michael Grisetti had been together for years. They worked for the same company, Crown Castle Inc. at Southpointe in Washington County, shared a home and had two young children.

At some point between mid-2021 and April 2022, Grisetti video-recorded Ball getting out of the shower.

But she never knew until months later that, after a breakup, Grisetti played the video in an online Teams meeting for hundreds of their co-workers across the country.

Minutes later, he sent an email with three still images from the video to more than 1,000 colleagues.

Weak laws led to Grisetti getting only a slap on the wrist in state criminal court, so now Ball is pursuing him — and their former employer — in a civil action in federal court.

She sued Grisetti last week for disclosure of intimate images under the federal Violence Against Women Act and intentional infliction of emotional distress, hoping to get compensatory and punitive damages.

Ball, 42, of Chartiers also named Crown Castle as a defendant, along with as many as 100 unnamed employees believed to have forwarded Grisetti’s email that day.

Ball is suing the company for unlawful dissemination of intimate images, negligence and vicarious liability.

A spokeswoman for Crown Castle declined to comment Tuesday.

In all, the lawsuit said, Grisetti disseminated the video and images of Ball to more than 2,200 Crown Castle employees.

Attorney Jeffrey Wertz, who represents Ball, said he believes it is one of the largest instances of unwanted dissemination of intimate images.

“The enormity of the amount of recipients the defendant was able to cover was extreme — practically countrywide,” Wertz said.

Grisetti, 51, of South Strabane was able to inflict maximum damage — sending the video and images to thousands of people — through just the touch of a button, the attorney said.

In January, Grisetti pleaded guilty in Washington County Common Pleas Court to two counts of unlawful dissemination of intimate images.

The charge is a misdemeanor, and Grisetti got probation.

“Pennsylvania’s criminal laws are lagging far behind the technology that allows people to inflict maximum harm using the technology of the day,” Wertz said. “It should be a felony.”

Under federal law, Ball could have filed her lawsuit using a pseudonym, the attorney said, but she didn’t want to.

“‘Use my name,’” he said she told him. “‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’”

Mass dissemination

Ball and Grisetti broke up in 2022. That May, he moved out of their home, according to the lawsuit.

At the time, Ball had worked for Crown Castle, a national company that operates wireless infrastructure, for more than 18 years.

Although based in Houston, Texas, Crown Castle has a large corporate office at Southpointe. In 2022, according to the lawsuit, the company had more than 5,000 employees and rental revenue for cell towers and fiber assets of $6.2 billion.

Grisetti’s job at the company was as a desktop analyst, requiring him to provide executive support such as organizing Teams meetings, police said.

He was responsible for setting up a video meeting the morning of Oct. 25, 2022.

About 900 employees were on the call in several states, including Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona and California.

About 11:15 a.m., Grisetti broadcast the video of Ball coming out of the shower by embedding it in a PowerPoint presentation as part of the meeting, police said.

Ball was completely naked.

Within minutes, according to records in the case, Grisetti used Crown Castle’s email to send three still images taken from the nude video to 1,371 employees.

“Within a few hours of the live broadcast and the mass email dissemination, (Crown Castle) issued a statement to its employees that stated, in part: ‘Earlier today, our company email was used to share a highly inappropriate video during a meeting,” the lawsuit said. “Unfortunately, this email was also then sent to teammates in the Houston and Pittsburgh offices.’”

Grisetti, who did not return a call seeking comment, was fired and escorted out the same day.

Chartiers police began an investigation that afternoon.

‘Maximum exposure’

Almost six months later, in April 2023, Grisetti was charged in Washington County with unlawful dissemination of an intimate image, invasion of privacy and harassment. On Jan. 16, he entered his guilty plea.

The plea agreement called for four years of probation, as well as a drug and alcohol evaluation, mental health evaluation and anger management classes.

Grisetti agreed to pay $1,233 in restitution.

Assistant District Attorney Zachary Moore, the prosecutor at the plea hearing, told Judge Jesse D. Pettit he might have trouble proving the invasion of privacy counts — which would have required sex offender registration — beyond a reasonable doubt.

During the hearing, Ball objected to the plea and sentence and told the court she was infuriated that Pennsylvania law has not caught up to cyber crimes.

“I just hope that we’ll be able to make some kind of impact on him so that he and others know that we won’t stand for this,” she said.

Grisetti had the video for months, Wertz said, and his decision wasn’t made in the spur of the moment.

“He had time to reflect. He had time to cool off,” the attorney said. “He had time to consider what he was going to do with it.

“He went for maximum exposure, maximum hurt.”

The prosecutor told the court even he was shocked the sentencing guidelines were so low.

But Grisetti’s defense attorney Peter Marcoline III said his client, who had no criminal record, sought counseling after the incident and always intended to plead guilty so as not to put Ball through a trial.

“This man has been nothing but remorseful since this incident occurred,” Marcoline said at the time.

“I’m very sorry for what I did, my actions,” Grisetti told the court. “Because I was not in right state of the mind, I did something that I regret.

“I wish I could hit the enter key and recall that.”

Underestimating harm

Asia Eaton, a psychology professor at Florida International University and head of research for the nonprofit Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, studies image-based sexual abuse.

According to research by the nonprofit, which provides victim support, one in eight people will be victimized by non-consensual pornography. Men are twice as likely to be perpetrators than women, and women are 1.5 times more likely to be victims.

“As a nation, we are in desperate need of a strong federal law,” she said.

Forty-nine states have their own laws, according to Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. However, they vary in how well they protect victims, Eaton said.

In some states, the prosecution must be able to prove the perpetrator intended to harm the victim to get a conviction. That’s a high burden not necessary in other sexual crimes, she said.

Other states require use of the victim’s name for the act to be considered a crime.

A comprehensive piece of legislation passed the U.S. Senate in July, but it is stalled in the House.

Society underestimates the harm that comes to victims from these crimes, Eaton said.

Research has shown survivors of image-based sexual abuse can experience harms on many levels, including socially, economically and even in an existential way.

They might isolate from friends and family. Often, they have to pay to have materials removed online or for lawyers and mental health care, and they might lose their ability to trust others.

It is common for victims to experience physical symptoms, as well, Eaton said.

Often, victims will go offline for a period of time, but eventually they must go back to track the spread of images and work to have them taken down again, according to Eaton.

Some victims of these crimes, Eaton said, use outreach and advocacy as a coping mechanism.

“They find meaning in helping others,” she said.

That type of outreach can be difficult, Eaton said, because recounting what happened can be retraumatizing.

Why they do it

Research shows a number of reasons why a perpetrator engages in image-based sexual abuse, Eaton said.

In some instances, it’s about the person retaining power and control over the victim.

It can also be for sexual gratification; to extort the victim for money; or even just for the perpetrator to share with friends for fun.

“There are individuals who intend to ruin a person’s life,” Eaton said. “It is, in this case, a form of relationship violence.”

In the case against Grisetti, Ball claimed in her lawsuit that he knew disseminating the video and images to her coworkers, would result in her being “embarrassed, mortified,” “traumatized, ridiculed and humiliated.”

To Wertz, the damage suffered by his client underscores the need for changes to Pennsylvania law.

“The state and federal civil statutes do have some teeth, unlike Pennsylvania’s criminal laws, which we’d like to see strengthened to reflect the times and technology,” Wertz said.

“The need for a consistent deterrent is apparent.”