Seven Women File Civil Lawsuit Against Jay Link

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DOUGLAS COUNTY -- A civil lawsuit has been filed against Jay Link, of Link’s Wild Safaris, in Douglas County Circuit Court. Seven plaintiffs, represented by Spears, Carlson and Coleman, S.C located in Washburn, WI allege that through the use of a social website that caters to sexual fetishes, Jay Link intentionally and negligently caused each of the plaintiff's emotional distress and caused them to suffer from the invasion of privacy and defamation.

Listed below is a bullet-point list summarizing the allegations from the 25-page civil complaint filed against Jay Link.

1. The defendant, Jay E. Link, is an adult resident of the State of Wisconsin residing at 16279 S. Bond Lake Estate Road in Wascott, Wisconsin.
2. FetLife.com (hereinafter FetLife) is a social media website that describes itself as “the Social Network for the BDSM, Fetish & Kinky Community. Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me...”
3. FetLife boasts over 7,876,368 members as of July 15, 2019.
4. Users of FetLife create profiles, much like users of the Facebook website and are known as “members”. Membership with FetLife is free and does not require any age verification and only requires the ability to receive a text to subscribe. There is no screening by FetLife as to whether the person subscribing is a sex offender or otherwise a danger to the public. Once a member, each member can post writings, photographs, and videos. While posting of photographs or videos not taken by the member them self is not permitted unless they are photos or videos of the member, however there is no way to enforce this policy.
5. Several members of FetLife maintain pseudo screennames to maintain their anonymity.
6. Upon information and belief, the Defendant created and controls an account with FetLife and maintains a profile with a screenname of “Sexsafari”. All references to as “user Sexsafari” hereafter, refer to the FetLife account that upon information and belief is maintained and controlled by Jay Link. Upon information belief, user Sexsafari started posting photographs and commentary sometime around February of 2017.
7. A review of the FetLife profile belong to the member known as Sexsafari revealed over 1,000 images of women.
8. The FetLife website indicates when users post images. According to the FetLife website, user Sexsafari started posting images approximately two years prior to February 2019 and the most recent images were posted in January and February of 2019.
9. A majority of the photos posted by the user Sexsafari reflected women, although there were some photos depicting men engaged in sexual acts with women.
10. The exact number of different women contained in the 1,000+ photos posted by the user Sexsafari is not presently known, but is, upon information and belief, in excess.
11. Some of the photos of women posted by the user Sexsafari appeared to be photos that the women took themselves, clothed and in every-day arenas (such as at work, at the beach, at home, etc.)
12. Most of the other photos were not taken by the women themselves and depicted the women nude or partially nude and/or engaged in various sexual acts.
13. Most of the photos posted by the user Sexsafari included captions.
14. Almost every photo caption labeled the woman depicted a “Slut” and then provided her first name (e.g. “Slut Sara”).
15. Some of the names of the women were very unique and not the actual name of the woman in he picture.
16. The user Sexsafari never provided his name, and instead referred to himself as “Master.”
17. The user Sexsafari never posted a photo of himself clearly showing his face such that he could be identified, although he posted photos of many women that made them identifiable.
18. The user Sexsafari posted photos with captions indicating that he (“Master”) engaged in sexual acts with the women depicted.
19. The user Sexsafari posted in several captions that he had “trained” or was “training” the woman in the photo.
20. The FetLife platform allows all 7,800,000+ other members of FetLife to see the photos posted by user Sexsafari as well as the comments on those photos. Further all of the other members on FetLife were able to make their own comments.
21. Numerous FetLife users posted comments on the 1000+ photos posted by the user SexSafari. As stated above, the members/users of FetLife are not screened and often maintain pseudo screennames. These users could be from anywhere in the world and could be violent and dangerous.
22. In some of his responses and posts, the user Sexsafari indicated that he is interested in trades with his “sluts.”
23. Indeed, some photos posted by the user FetLife purported to show the user Sexsafari engaged in sexual acts with at least one woman who was allegedly traded to him.
24. Other FetLife users posted comments indicating they would like to engage in sexual acts with the woman depicted and asked if she was interested in further sexual acts. The user Sexsafari would sometimes respond and indicated the woman would be interested in doing so. None of the plaintiffs know the individuals who made comments regarding the photos that were posted.
25. The actions by Sexsafari in providing photos and commentary on his “trained sluts” and their willingness to be traded or engage in sexual acts with other men conveyed the idea that these women act at the direction of the user Sexsafari and are available for sexual contact with other FetLife users. These other FetLife users are unknown individuals using pseudo names.
26. The user Sexsafari also indicated in regards to several women that he had “bred” them or that they wanted to be bred. On at least one occasion, Sexsafari indicated he had “bred” a woman and her boyfriend thought the child she subsequently had was the boyfriend’s.
27. The profile of the user Sexsafari on FetLife and the pictures posted by Sexsafari enabled other women to be identified.
28. User Sexsafari posted photos showing the faces of women and their first names. Comparing the first names of the women posted by Sexsafari to the Facebook account of Jay Link enabled several other women to be identified.
29. All of the plaintiffs share some connection to Jay Link.
30. Many of the plaintiffs are, or were, Facebook friends of Jay Link. Some of the photos posted on FetLife by Sexsafari were from their personal Facebook pages.
31. Some of the individuals depicted in the intimate photos taken of them were able to uniformly dentify Jay Link as the individual who took the photos.
32. While the user SexSafari does not reveal his full face on his FetLife profile, there are many photos showing parts of his body (including his genitals, his arms, the top of his head, etc.)
33. Many of the plaintiffs were able to identify Jay Link as the male reflected in many of the photos posted on the FetLife by user Sexsafari.
34. Jay Link, upon information and belief, owns a company known as “Link’s Wild Safaris” and frequently travels on safaris.
35. The user Sexsafari identified himself as being 49 years old on his FetLife profile.
36. Jay Link, upon information and belief, was 49 years old at the time the photos were discovered on FetLife.

The following is a list of the 35 Counts filed against Link:

Jane Doe 1 (from Minnesota)

• Count 1: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 2: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 3: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 4: Defamation
• Count 5: Punitive Damages

Jane Doe 2 (from Wisconsin)

• Count 6: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 7: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 8: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 9: Defamation
• Count 10: Punitive Damages

Jane Doe 3 (from Wisconsin)

• Count 11: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 12: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 13: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 14: Defamation
• Count 15: Punitive Damages

Jane Doe 4 (from South Dakota)

• Count 16: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 17: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 18: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 19: Defamation
• Count 20: Punitive Damages

Jane Doe 5 (from South Dakota)

• Count 21: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 22: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 23: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 24: Defamation
• Count 25: Punitive Damages

Jane Doe 6 (from California)

• Count 26: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 27: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 28: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 29: Defamation
• Count 30: Punitive Damages

Jane Doe 7 (from Washington)

• Count 31: Invasion of Privacy in Violation of Wis. Stat. Sec. 995.50
• Count 32: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 33: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Count 34: Defamation
• Count 35: Punitive Damages

Pursuant to the direction of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, as found in Supreme Court Rule 20:3.6, Trial Publicly, you are advised that a charge is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.