In what may be a first in the annals of jurisprudence, an attorney has asked an Orange County Superior Court judge to seal a picture of his penis from the public record.
On March 11, attorneys for a Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against Riverside attorney Dwayne S. Beck alleging sexual battery, assault, and five other charges. The woman claims that Beck kept propositioning her while the two worked together–he as a lawyer, she as a translator and interpreter for a legal service–which eventually escalated into Beck brushing against her, asking to take a picture of her breasts, and even blocking her from leaving a room while he had an erection. That last alleged incident ended, according to the complaint, with Beck sexting her a photo of his penis.
The woman's legal complaint included a photo of Beck's supposed sexted phallus. No surprise: Beck was furious at the move.
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On March 29, Beck's lawyers argued before Judge James Di Cesare to not only
force the woman to reveal her name and grant them the use of “John Doe”
for Beck to spare him humiliation, but to have the entire complaint sealed–or, at the very least the penis shot–“due to
the intensely private nature of its contents,” according to court documents obtained by the Weekly
Beck and his lawyers denied all the charges in Doe's complaint, saying they lacked legal merit. They did, however, admit one point in their ex parte application to seal this matter: it was Beck's sexted penis in the original complaint.
“Defendants are informed and believe that by filing this action with a nude picture of Defendant as an exhibit and using media exposure as a litigation tool,” Beck's attorneys wrote. “Plaintiff seeks to maximize the harassment, humiliation, embarrassment suffered by Defendents in the community where he practices as an attorney while avoiding the scrutiny associated with filing her meritless lawsuit.”
Judge Di Cesare refused to grant Beck's request to turn him into a John Doe, or to have his alleged victim reveal her name, or to seal the entirety of the complaint. He did, however, allow Beck to have the photo of his penis sealed.
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