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For Michelle Davies, the journey to justice has been filled with frustration and reliving painful humiliations.
				That has never deterred her.
				The Luzerne County native was a victim of &ldquo;revenge porn&rdquo; when an abusive ex-boyfriend last year shared nude images of Davies &mdash; taken without her knowledge or consent while she was asleep, she said &mdash; with her then-boyfriend and another male friend.
				&ldquo;I only saw them after my friend showed them to me and said, &lsquo;you need to do something about this. This is serious,&rsquo;&rdquo; Davies said during a recent interview. &ldquo;And then my jaw hit the floor.&rdquo;
				The first hurdle was finding a law enforcement agency willing to take on the case, which spanned different jurisdictions based on where the photos were taken, where they were sent from and where the recipients lived.
				Once Davies found an interested and dedicated investigator in Luzerne County Detective Chaz Balogh, she had to show him the photos as part of the investigation. Last year, after the county&rsquo;s computer system was struck by a costly and damaging cyber attack, Davies had to provide the images a second time.
				Once a criminal case began, she understood that prosecutors, defense attorneys and the judge would have to see those images as well.
				&ldquo;Every time you share it with somebody to show them what happened, that&rsquo;s embarrassing. That&rsquo;s an intimate thing,&rdquo; Davies said.
				But she never wavered in her desire to see the case through and help raise awareness of the crime.
				After ex-boyfriend Roy John Yanvary pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January, Davies &mdash; then still anonymous, as the Times Leader does not identify victims of sexual crimes &mdash; gave the paper a written statement urging other victims of revenge porn to come forward.
				&ldquo;Do not suffer in silence. Your attacker counts on you feeling shame even though this is not your fault,&rdquo; she wrote.
				Davies agreed recently to speak about her ordeal on the record, using her name.
				That conversation took place on Saturday, March 14. One of the things Davies took comfort in at the time was that Yanvary looked set to stay in the Luzerne County Correctional Facility for several months, at least.
				Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Vough on Jan. 31 had sentenced Yanvary to one to 23 months on a misdemeanor charge of selling obscene sexual materials followed by two years probation for unlawful dissemination of an intimate image. Yanvary was given credit for 145 days time served in jail.
				Vough said Yanvary would remain in jail and wouldn&rsquo;t be eligible for parole until he found a permanent residence, as his family in Susquehanna County had refused to allow Yanvary to use their address.
				That brought Davies some relief, but another frustration was yet to come.
				On March 15, the day after Davies&rsquo; interview with the newspaper, local officials announced that Luzerne County had its first confirmed case of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Within days, officials were looking at the possibility of releasing low-level offenders from the correctional facility as fears of a COVID-19 outbreak mounted.
				Last week, Davies was informed that Yanvary had been let out of LCCF.
				&ldquo;My worst nightmare has come true. Roy was released,&rdquo; she wrote in a social media post on Wednesday. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have much (information) yet, but I&rsquo;m worried.&rdquo;
				As this story was being written, it was not immediately clear where Yanvary had been released to. Davies did note, however, that she had previously obtained a three-year Protection From Abuse order against him.
				Encountering Yanvary in person is only part of her fear, however.
				As Davies told Vough at Yanvary&rsquo;s sentencing hearing, she is afraid he has the pictures saved in his email and worries he may post them when he is released from jail.
				&ldquo;These will also be held over my head for the rest of my life,&rdquo; she told the judge.
				The incident
				Davies, who had relocated to western Pennsylvania for work, began a relationship with Yanvary in 2018. It lasted about 10 months.
				The relationship came to an abrupt, violent end on April 8, 2019, after Yanvary erupted in a drunken rage and Davies ended up in an emergency room.
				&ldquo;It was a controlling relationship and I&rsquo;m glad to be out of it,&rdquo; she said.
				She moved back east &mdash; initially to Luzerne County, and then to the Allentown area.
				In May 2019, Davies received a shocking reminder of Yanvary&rsquo;s continuing anger toward her: Two male friends in Luzerne County informed her that they had received nude photographs of her from Yanvary.
				One was a man she was then dating. The other was a longtime friend. Between the two, they had received about 16 images, court records state.
				&ldquo;At the time when they were taken, I was either asleep or had passed out. They obviously weren&rsquo;t taken of me in my best light,&rdquo; Davies said. &ldquo;But even if it had been my best light, I wouldn&rsquo;t have posed for them.&rdquo;
				According to court records, Yanvary told one of the men he was sending the photos so the man would have something to masturbate to.
				The images, and remarks like that, weren&rsquo;t the only disturbing element of the situation.
				Davies said one of the men had already blocked Yanvary on Facebook, and that Yanvary had apparently created a new account to send the photos.
				And, Davies added, she had never mentioned the other friend to Yanvary.
				&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t even think he knew that (the friend) existed,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He must have kind of stalked him on social media.&rdquo;
				Both men encouraged Davies to approach law enforcement, and both later cooperated with investigators, court records show.
				Initially, however, Davies had trouble finding investigators who would cooperate with her, receiving no assistance from officials in Butler County.
				&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how many hours I spent on the phone calling various levels of government &mdash; police departments, sheriff&rsquo;s offices, DA&rsquo;s offices,&rdquo; she said.
				&ldquo;By now I was in Allentown, where I had a magistrate&rsquo;s office tell me I had to file a private complaint,&rdquo; Davies said. &ldquo;I was like, &lsquo;no, it&rsquo;s not that, he broke the law.&rsquo;&rdquo;
				A crime in Pa.
				What those officials didn&rsquo;t seem to know was that a law enacted six years ago made sharing &ldquo;revenge porn&rdquo; a crime in Pennsylvania. Act 115 of 2014 prohibits dissemination of intimate images with intent to harass, annoy or alarm a current or former sexual or intimate partner.
				&ldquo;This happens more than you think,&rdquo; Balogh said in an interview last week, adding that the perpetrators are mostly males, though he has investigated at least one case involving a female defendant.
				Davies also knew sharing such images was a crime, based on the experience of a co-worker who also had been a victim, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s a relatively new law and a lot of people don&rsquo;t know about it.&rdquo;
				She also was running out of places to turn.
				Then, Davies remembered that she had participated in the Leadership Wilkes-Barre program years before with local attorney C. David Pedri, now the Luzerne County manager.
				Pedri referred her to Balogh, whose areas of expertise include cyber and sexual crimes.
				&ldquo;He was communicative and completely respectful,&rdquo; Davies said of Balogh.
				Because Davies had resided in Luzerne County at the time the images were sent, and because they were sent to residents of the county, it was appropriate to file charges here, Balogh explained.
				What Balogh also sought to avoid was putting Davies through the ordeal of returning to western Pennsylvania for proceedings.
				&ldquo;I felt I didn&rsquo;t want her to have to go back to a place she didn&rsquo;t want to go back to,&rdquo; he said.
				Legal proceedings
				Once interviews with the photo recipients had been conducted and computer records subpoenaed, investigators sent police to interview Yanvary out in Butler County on July 16, 2019.
				&ldquo;According to Yanvary, he took the nude images of the woman with her consent during the course of their relationship for his own personal use when he wants to remember her,&rdquo; an initial affidavit stated, adding that they were stored in his personal photo album.
				But then, the affidavit states, Yanvary also acknowledged something else.
				Yanvary told a detective he did not remember sending the nude images to one of the men, but that he &ldquo;must have been drunk and pissed off at her.&rdquo;
				Charges were filed about two weeks later. Yanvary was brought to Luzerne County for arraignment and released on $10,000 unsecured bail.
				When Yanvary failed to appear for a preliminary hearing in Luzerne County in mid-August, District Judge Joseph Halesey issued a bench warrant for his arrest. After being returned to LCCF he was held there pending further proceedings for violating the terms of his bail.
				Yanvary pleaded guilty on Jan. 6 to one count each of selling of obscene or sexual materials and unlawful dissemination of an intimate image, both misdemeanor charges. Prosecutors withdrew two additional counts of the same charges in pursuance of a plea deal.
				After imposing his sentence on Jan. 31, Vough told Yanvary: &ldquo;I wish I could give you more.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;Do you understand what your actions did in this case?&rdquo; Vough asked, to which Yanvary replied, &ldquo;Yes, I do.&rdquo;
				If so, Yanvary seemed less than contrite when he flashed an obscene gesture toward waiting media while being led from the courthouse in shackles afterward.
				&ldquo;The fact that he flipped off the reporters shows what kind of person he is,&rdquo; a frustrated Davies said.
				She referred to Yanvary&rsquo;s dissemination of her photos as &ldquo;just another form of abuse.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;People may be ashamed to come forward. I knew something had to be done to stop him,&rdquo; she said.
				Balogh praised Davies for her &ldquo;commitment to do the right thing,&rdquo; and for being open about her experiences to help others.
				&ldquo;She certainly is a great advocate,&rdquo; he said.

Luzerne County native speaks about being a victim of ‘revenge porn’