The mayor of a small city in Maryland today was arrested and charged with 50 counts of distributing revenge porn on Reddit, the Maryland state prosecutor’s office announced.

Cambridge Mayor Andrew Bradshaw, 32, “created multiple accounts on the public Internet forum ‘Reddit,’ employing public usernames consisting of permutations of the name and birthdate of a person, identified as Victim-1, who had a past romantic relationship with Mr. Bradshaw,” the announcement said. Bradshaw allegedly “posted nude photographs of Victim-1, captioned with racial slurs and sexually explicit language, on those ‘Reddit’ accounts and various ‘Subreddit’ forums that were related to sexual activity, humiliation, degradation, race, and other topics.”

Each of the 50 counts carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a fine of $5,000. Police had executed a search and seizure warrant at the mayor’s office in City Hall on August 4.

Bradshaw was sworn in as mayor in January 2021 after defeating incumbent Victoria Jackson-Stanley in a runoff election, reportedly with 1,643 votes to Jackson-Stanley’s 1,219 votes. Cambridge had an estimated 12,260 residents as of July 2019.

Woman contacted police after discovering Reddit posts

The state prosecutor detailed the allegations in a charging document filed in Circuit Court for Dorchester County. The document says that Bradshaw’s alleged victim is a woman born in 1995 who contacted law enforcement in May 2021 after discovering that nude photographs of herself were posted on Reddit without her consent.

“Victim-1 advised that she transmitted the posted photographs only to one other person, Andrew Bradshaw, that the photographs were sent when she and Bradshaw were in an intimate relationship, and that she did not provide Bradshaw with consent to re-distribute the photographs. Victim-1 advised law enforcement that she is no longer romantically involved with Bradshaw,” the charging document says.

Bradshaw was charged with violating Maryland’s revenge-porn statute, which “prohibits the nonconsensual distribution of a private visual representation of another which exposes their intimate body parts or displays them engaged in sexual activity, with the intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten or coerce the person depicted,” the state prosecutor’s announcement said.

“Online court records indicate he was released on his own recognizance after appearing in Dorchester Circuit Court on Monday,” The Washington Post wrote.

Insulting captions included racial slurs

Reddit accounts with usernames based on the victim’s name and date of birth “were utilized to post photographs of Victim-1’s face and intimate parts to public Reddit forums,” the charging document said. Those forums include “subreddits named ‘HumiliatingComments,’ ‘DegradeThisPig,’ ‘DegradedCaptions,’ ‘Slut,’ and ‘needysluts,'” the document said. “Additional photographs of Victim-1 were posted in subreddits specifically related to ‘raceplay’ with racial slurs in several of the posting titles.” The revenge-porn posts were made from an IP address traced to a house that Bradshaw owns in Cambridge, the document said.

Racial epithets allegedly used by Bradshaw in photo captions were redacted from the copy of the charging document provided by the prosecutor’s office. The document says captions on the revenge-porn photos included “Ready to try my first ever [redacted] dick,” “The kind of white girl [redacted] love to nut on,” “I have no self-esteem, and just want to be covered in cum to know my fat body has a purpose,” “Every morning, I get off to the thought of dozens of guys jerking off and pumping out their load to pics of my fat titties <3,” “Would you rather cum in me, on my titties, on my tummy, or on my face???,” “chubby white girl looking for a [redacted] daddy to message with,” and “Ready to put a [redacted] dick between these titties for the first time ;).”

“The business of the City is unaffected”

The Baltimore Sun reported on how Cambridge’s government will proceed while the mayor faces criminal charges:

David Deutsch, Cambridge’s acting city manager, said the city’s commissioners will be meeting with the city attorney “shortly” to examine the city charter and code to see “what options exist and if any action needs to be taken.” That’s likely to take place before the commissioners’ next meeting in mid-December, he said.

In the meantime, Bradshaw remains the city’s mayor, Deutsch said.

“Government operations are still moving forward,” Deutsch said. “The legal issues surrounding the mayor is a personal matter and doesn’t involve city business.”

The city also posted a statement on its website. “The City is currently gathering information and will cooperate fully with the Maryland State Police and the Office of the State Prosecutor,” the statement said. “As the City has a Council-Manager form of municipal government whereby the City Manager serves as the chief executive officer of the City and the head of its administrative branch, the business of the City is unaffected. As this is an active legal matter, no further comments will be made at this time.”

The youngest mayor in Cambridge’s history, Bradshaw graduated magna cum laude from Penn State and has experience working in his family’s body shop business and serving as a volunteer firefighter, according to his bio on the city’s website.

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