Freedom of speech won on Monday.

A judge convicted Casillas in 2018 of "felony non-consensual dissemination of private images." But after being sentenced to almost two years in prison, his conviction is now reversed.

"You have victims whose lives are going to be ruined by this," said Minnesota State Representative John Lesch.

Lesch wrote the "revenge porn" bill back in 2016, which criminalized the practice of distributing private sexual images without consent. It passed with a near-unanimous vote, but that's all down the drain now that judges on the Cassilas case say the law uses an "overly broad definition of obscenity and doesn't require proof that the person disseminating the images 'caused of intended a specific harm.'"

"In reading the court of appeals decision, it was clear that they really didn't take into consideration the privacy rights of individual victims," said Lesch. "They only looked at this through free speech rights, which really can lead to some absurd results, and some really tragic consequences for the victims."

John Arechigo, the attorney for Michael Anthony Casillas, released the following statement to 5 Eyewitness News:

"The Court of Appeals thoroughly and thoughtfully analyzed the issues and arguments we raised. This case wasn't about whether people should be able to disseminate "revenge porn." It was about the law that Minnesota legislators passed three years ago. The law was poorly written. The law didn't punish an invasion of privacy, as the state argued. The law didn't even require an invasion of privacy as a basis to bring criminal charges. The Court of Appeals properly ruled the law punished speech in violation of the First Amendment. It's up to state legislators to craft better legislation if they're really trying to protect victims of 'revenge porn.'"

"Judges don't understand the negative impacts to our young people that are occurring if you say anyone has a free speech right to distribute a sex video," said Lesch. "There are dire consequences for folks in this country, many of them young women."

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom released the following statement to 5 Eyewitness News:

"This is an important statute enacted to protect victims from revenge porn type actions. This type of conduct can have long term detrimental impacts upon the victim. We believe this statute is constitutional, and we intend to petition the Minnesota Supreme Court to seek review of this Court of Appeals decision concluding this law is facially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."