Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson filed a police report in his home state of Arizona that alleges sexually explicit videos of him that made the rounds online last month were so-called “revenge porn.”
Ellefson and his legal team recently met with Scottsdale, Arizona, police according to AZ Central, which first reported the news.
According to AZ Central, Ellefson and his lawyers told police that the videos were taken without his consent or knowledge and recorded during a Facebook Messenger chat with a woman, who he says he met while signing autographs at a concert in the Netherlands. Ellefson claims she was 19 when they first began their relationship.
For anyone new to the term, revenge porn is the act of posting someone else’s sexually explicit material online without their consent. Forty-one states have laws prohibiting this kind of conduct, including Arizona, where it’s punishable by up to one-and-a-half years in prison and a maximum fine of $150,000. Arizona enacted this law in 2018 and it also notes that if someone threatens to disclose revenge porn but ultimately does not, that threat can be still classified as a misdemeanor offense.
We first learned of the Ellefson scandal in May, when the videos and texts from Ellefson were leaked and Megadeth first said it was “aware” of the incident. Shortly after that statement, frontman Dave Mustaine (who co-founded the band in 1983 with Ellefson) put out a separate note May 24 informing fans Ellefson had been kicked from the band.
Loudwire reported Ellefson did admit the leaks featured him and said they were copies of private and personal conversations” and “adult interactions that were taken out of context.”
AZ Central also reported that Ellefson told Arizona police he spoke with the woman via phone, and she admitted she had made the recordings and shared them with “some friends” but claimed not to know how they were leaked to the wider public. Ellefson also told police the woman was “remorseful” and shared with them a statement she posted on her Instagram (it is unclear if she posted at Ellefson’s request) stating she was of legal age and a consenting adult when they had their virtual engagements.
In May, explicit videos of Ellefson, 56, were leaked online and shared on Twitter. The leaks included videos of Ellefson masturbating and also showed screenshots of texts between Ellefson and a a 19 year-old fan. Social media users started accusing Ellefson of being “a pedophile” and persuading the 19-year-old woman into a sexual relationship by grooming her while she was underage.
Ellefson has repeatedly denied the allegations.