A San Diego man who prosecutors say ran a "revenge porn" website featuring nude pictures of women often posted by jilted ex-lovers was convicted on Monday of identity theft and extortion charges, prosecutors said.

Kevin Boellart, 28, was found guilty on 27 felony counts by a San Diego County Superior jury after 2-1/2 days of deliberation, according to the California Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted the case.

Jurors were unable to reach verdicts on one count each of identity theft and conspiracy.

Boellart, who was taken into custody after the verdict, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on April 3.

Boellart was arrested in 2013, shortly after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a first-in-the-nation law targeting so-called revenge porn websites. Prosecutors said he was the first defendant prosecuted under the law.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission banned a revenge porn site operator from the web in the first federal civil enforcement action against a similar site, IsAnybodyDown.com.

Prosecutors said Boellart, using the handle Vindictive2786, ran a website called YouGotPosted.com, which allowed spurned lovers to post explicit pictures of women. Often, the victims had taken the photos themselves and sent them to significant others, who uploaded them to the site after the relationships ended, according to local media accounts of the trial.

The site required posters to provide links to Facebook pages, the victims’ names, addresses, phone numbers and social media.

When the women tried to have their pictures removed, Boellart and a partner would demand more photos and private information, prosecutors said.

More than two dozen people were named as victims in the criminal complaint. Some testified at trial that they suffered humiliation and fear when their private photos were posted and prosecutor Tawnya Austin told jurors that they also were harassed by people who tried to contact them through Facebook or by email.

"It ruined my life and I'm still going through it," testified one woman, who said she was thrown out of her home after her nude photos were posted. "I lost my family. They think that I brought shame on them. My reputation is ruined."

Prosecutors have said Boellart's site, which is no longer operational, had featured over 10,000 sexually explicit photos, and that he charged women up to $350 each to remove them. In opening arguments, Austin said the site amounted to "21st century blackmail."

According to a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors, Boellart netted more than $10,000 between December 2012 and September 2013 from women whose pictures had been posted and were removed.

Many whose images ended up on the YouGotPosted.com site eventually paid another website linked to the revenge porn site to have the pictures removed, not realizing it was operated by the same people, Austin said.

Bollaert's lawyer, Emily Rose-Weber, argued in court that her client may have conducted an immoral business that took advantage of "human weakness" but he didn't break the law by allowing others to post the explicit photos.

"It's gross, it's offensive, but it's not illegal," she said, arguing he was running a legitimate business.

Wire services