T-Mobile Employee, James Tu Faces Lawsuit for Sharing Private Photos on Dark Web


A T-Mobile worker out in South Carolina, who's already dealing with some criminal charges, is now dealing with a lawsuit too. The suit claims he shared folks' private pics on "dark web" forums and gaming sites by swiping customers' passcodes and texting himself loads of compromising pics. 

This guy, James Tu, age 29, got nabbed in 2022 by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office for computer crime stuff. Last week, a couple, known as "Jane Doe" and her husband, filed a lawsuit against Tu. T-Mobile also got roped into this mess as a defendant.

T-Mobile ain't happy with this situation and said, "We take this very seriously and moved quickly to address this unacceptable activity. We worked closely with the Authorized Retailer who has taken action to terminate their employee."

The lawsuit says Tu got his hands on the lady's pics on May 18, 2022, when this couple went to a T-Mobile store in Beaufort to buy a new phone. Tu told the husband to bounce, and when he came back, the phone would be ready in an hour. 

Dude left and checked his phone later, only to find texts going to a strange number. These messages contained private pics of his wife and kid. He called the number, and guess who answered? Yep, Tu, at the T-Mobile store, still on the job.

The husband went back to the store and confronted Tu. He went through Tu's phone and saw he'd sent loads of pics of his wife, some with her barely dressed, and even some with her and their little one in the tub. Tu had a stash of "compromising pics" of other women on his phone, including a secret folder full of hundreds of such pics.

Tu got these pics by swiping people's phones left at the store and using the passcodes folks provided, thinking their stuff would be safe while T-Mobile did their thing. These services involve handling and transferring personal, sensitive data.

Store security footage even shows Tu casually scrolling through phones. The lawsuit says T-Mobile should've been more careful and prevented employee privacy invasions and data theft, especially since similar stuff happened across the country.

The lawsuit claims T-Mobile grabbed a chip from Tu's phone and, instead of properly investigating, they destroyed it. It says Tu's actions were way out of line and utterly unacceptable.

The lawsuit's going after T-Mobile for negligence and invasion of privacy, looking for an undisclosed amount to cover mental distress, pain, embarrassment, anxiety, and lost joy in life. Tu's got his criminal case pending, and his public defender hasn't said anything yet.

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