Doe v. Bonnell is a federal lawsuit in which the plaintiff, proceeding anonymously as Jane Doe, accuses live streamer Steven Bonnell II — known online as Destiny — of sharing an intimate video of her without consent. The August 2026 trial did not go forward: the case is on hold until the court rules on her request for sanctions over allegedly deleted evidence, with a hearing set for October 2, 2026.
Doe v. Bonnell is a federal lawsuit pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The plaintiff, proceeding as Jane Doe, alleges that Steven K. Bonnell II, known online as Destiny, unlawfully disclosed intimate images or videos of her without consent. Bonnell has appeared through counsel, filed an answer, and the case remains active.
This article is based on the publicly available complaint and docket entries. It describes the allegations and procedural history only. It does not state that any allegation has been proven, and it does not provide legal advice.
Latest Update: Trial Called Off While the Court Weighs an Evidence Dispute
The trial that had been set for August 10, 2026 never happened. On June 30, 2026, Judge Jacqueline Becerra took the case off the trial calendar and said a new date would be set only after she rules on a sanctions motion Jane Doe filed in May. The order said the motion concerns evidence central to Doe’s claims.
That motion accuses Bonnell of “spoliation,” the legal term for destroying evidence, or failing to keep it, after a lawsuit was expected. Doe alleges that electronic messages relevant to the case were deleted or never properly preserved and produced. Bonnell opposes the motion and has objected to the additional declarations Doe filed to support it. The court has not decided whether any evidence was lost or deleted.
The stakes are high because of the rule Doe is relying on, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2). If a judge finds that a party intentionally got rid of electronic information to keep the other side from using it, the court can tell the jury to assume the missing material would have hurt that party, or in the most serious cases dismiss the case or enter judgment against that party. If the judge finds no intent to deprive, those penalties are not available under that part of the rule.
For now, everything else is paused. The court held a hearing on the motion on August 19, 2026, and has since put Bonnell’s motion for summary judgment and his earlier motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction on hold until it rules. An evidentiary hearing, where witnesses can testify, and oral argument on the sanctions motion are set for Friday, October 2, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. in federal court in Miami.
As of September 30, 2026, the docket shows no trial date, verdict, judgment or settlement.
What the Lawsuit Is About
The complaint was filed on February 18, 2025. Jane Doe alleges that Bonnell recorded sexually explicit videos during a private encounter and later disclosed one or more videos without her knowledge or consent. The complaint says the alleged disclosure caused emotional distress, reputational harm, and other damages.
The complaint brings claims under the federal Intimate Image Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 6851, Florida Statute § 784.049, and Florida law claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy based on public disclosure of private facts.
The case is not a class action. It is an individual civil case between Jane Doe and Steven K. Bonnell II.
The Main Allegations in the Complaint
According to the complaint, Jane Doe is an online streamer and influencer known online as Pxie. The complaint alleges that Bonnell, known online as Destiny, is a live streamer and political commentator with a large online following.
The complaint alleges that Doe and Bonnell began communicating on Discord when Doe was approximately 19 years old and Bonnell was approximately 33 years old. It further alleges that, on or about September 12, 2020, the two had one sexual encounter and that Bonnell recorded videos during that encounter.
Doe alleges that, on or about October 4, 2022, Bonnell shared one of the videos electronically with a person using the screen name Rose without Doe's knowledge or consent. Doe also alleges that, on or about November 29, 2024, the video appeared on Kiwifarms and other websites, where it was allegedly viewed thousands of times.
The complaint also alleges that Doe contacted Bonnell on November 29, 2024, after learning about the online posting, and that Bonnell responded with an apology in a message quoted in the complaint. Those allegations are part of Doe's pleading and have not been adjudicated as final factual findings.
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Claims Listed in the Complaint
The complaint lists four causes of action:
Count I: Violation of 15 U.S.C. § 6851. Doe alleges that Bonnell knowingly and intentionally disclosed sexually explicit videos without her knowledge or consent, in violation of the federal Intimate Image Protection Act.
Count II: Violation of Florida Statute § 784.049. Doe alleges sexual cyberharassment under Florida law.
Count III: Intentional infliction of emotional distress. Doe alleges that Bonnell's conduct was intentional or reckless and caused severe emotional distress.
Count IV: Invasion of privacy. Doe alleges public disclosure of private facts involving intimate material that she says was never intended for public distribution.
The complaint seeks damages, injunctive relief, attorneys' fees, and other relief. The filing of a complaint is not a finding of liability.
Steven Bonnell’s Side of the Case
Bonnell denies the claims. He appeared through counsel, including California lawyer Andrew Brettler, and on March 14, 2025 filed an answer with affirmative defenses and a jury demand. The account below comes from his sworn declarations, his lawyers’ filings and the court’s summaries of both sides. These are his claims, and the court has not decided whether they are true.
Where the two sides agree. According to an October 2025 court order summarizing both sides’ filings, Doe and Bonnell met online by late 2019, their friendship became sexual, and each sent the other videos of themselves with other partners. They met in person on September 12, 2020, and the encounter was consensually recorded. Both say they did not consent to the video being posted on Kiwi Farms. The order notes that this is where their accounts “steeply diverge.”
One transmission, he says, in April 2022. Bonnell says he sent the video once, over Discord, to a friend using the screen name “Rose.” In a September 2025 declaration he says an unknown third party using the name “SoloTinyLeaks” later got into Rose’s account, downloaded their messages and posted them on Kiwi Farms. He says the leaked screenshots use European day/month dates, so the entry Doe’s original complaint dated October 4, 2022 is really April 10, 2022, and his own logs show the same message on April 9, 2022, Florida time. He states under oath that he did not send the video to Rose or anyone else after that date. In court papers he has called himself a victim of “revenge pornography.”
Why the date matters. The federal law Doe sued under, 15 U.S.C. § 6851, took effect on October 1, 2022. Bonnell’s lawyers argue it does not apply to anything sent before then, and they cite other federal courts that have refused to apply it retroactively. Because that federal claim is the only reason the case is in federal court, his September 19, 2025 motion asks the court to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction and leave Doe’s Florida claims to state court. In its October 2025 order, the court called jurisdiction an “outstanding question.” That motion has not been decided and is now on hold.
The “Abbymc” dispute. Doe’s amended complaint adds an allegation that Bonnell also sent the video, sometime after March 2023, to a person using the name “Abbymc.” Bonnell says in his sworn declaration that he never sent the video to Abbymc. He points to a log of every file he sent her, which he says does not include the video’s filename. His lawyers say Abbymc did not testify at the June 2025 evidentiary hearing and that they were unable to serve her with a subpoena.
What the court said in October 2025. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres denied Doe’s request for a preliminary injunction on October 6, 2025, mainly for procedural reasons: she waited about five months after the November 2024 leak to ask for emergency relief, and her own counsel had said most of the damage was already done. The judge found Doe’s testimony that she is distraught “fully credible.” The order also quoted a January 20, 2025 post in which Doe wrote that she wanted Bonnell “to lose so much money” that he “will permanently learn his lesson,” and said her injury could therefore be addressed with money damages. The order stressed that the denial was not a ruling on the merits.
Sanctions fights on both sides. Each side has accused the other of misconduct. Both filed motions for sanctions under Rule 11, which the court denied without prejudice on April 21, 2026. Bonnell opposes Doe’s pending spoliation motion, and in August 2026 he and his lawyer filed declarations objecting to a new witness declaration Doe submitted in support of it.
What Bonnell Has Said Publicly
Outside court, Bonnell has discussed the case on his livestreams and social media. The quotes below are as reported by Dexerto and Deltia’s Gaming; OCA has not independently reviewed the underlying streams or posts. They are Bonnell’s own statements, not findings by the court, and Doe disputes his account.
January 2025, before the lawsuit. In a statement on his subreddit on January 20, 2025, Bonnell wrote that the leak “happened without my knowledge, consent, or authorization,” that “I do not believe I have violated any laws,” and that he was “actively pursuing criminal and civil litigation on these matters against multiple parties,” according to Dexerto. In statements around the same time, he said he had offered Doe financial help after learning she was struggling, that she declined, and that he had “shown a willingness to make things right.”
After the complaint was filed. In a February 2025 stream reported by Dexerto, he called the leaks “incredibly disgusting and invasive” and said he was “the primary target” of the published material. In a longer livestream statement reported by Deltia’s Gaming, he said: “I am a victim in this. Unarguably, the largest victim and I was the target of this, and I have been the most horribly impacted.” He described the case as being about “a video recorded five years ago and sent three years ago” and called the lawsuit “irritating.”
The money dispute. In what he presented on stream as a written response, reported by Deltia’s Gaming, Bonnell said an initial legal demand from Doe’s side sought $15 million, accused her of “trying to extract the maximum amount of money from me,” and called claims that he shared the video intending it to leak “baseless, callous and malicious.” He has also been reported as calling the lawsuit a “racket.” The $15 million figure is his description of a demand made before the lawsuit. The complaint itself asks for actual damages or $150,000 in liquidated damages on the federal claim, whichever is greater, and at least $1 million in punitive damages on each of three counts.
The evidence fight. On an October 2025 livestream, Bonnell reportedly mocked Doe’s forensic expert’s argument about file hash values, saying that “if I was going to doctor anything, I could just doctor a thing and then give them a hash and it wouldn’t prove anything.” Whether evidence was deleted or improperly preserved is the question now before the court on Doe’s sanctions motion.
Key Court Timeline
February 18, 2025: Jane Doe filed the complaint in the Southern District of Florida. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra and referred to U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres for certain matters.
February 19, 2025: The court granted Doe's motion to proceed under the pseudonym Jane Doe.
February 20, 2025: The court entered a protective order.
March 14, 2025: Bonnell filed an answer and affirmative defenses to the complaint with a jury demand.
April 3, 2025: The court entered a scheduling order that initially set trial for May 18, 2026, and calendar call for May 12, 2026.
April 4, 2025: The court denied Doe's temporary restraining order request as moot and referred the preliminary injunction portion of the motion to Magistrate Judge Torres.
June 3, 2025: The court held a motion hearing on Doe's request for preliminary injunction. The docket states that both Jane Doe and Steven K. Bonnell II were sworn and testified, and that the court took the matter under advisement.
September 4, 2025: The court granted Doe's motion for leave to file an amended complaint.
September 5, 2025: Doe filed an amended complaint, adding the allegation that Bonnell sent the video to a second person, “Abbymc,” after March 2023.
September 19, 2025: Bonnell moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing his only transmission of the video came in April 2022, before the federal statute took effect.
October 6, 2025: The court denied Doe's motion to compel Lolcow LLC to remove videos. The court also denied Doe's motion for preliminary injunction. Magistrate Judge Torres found no irreparable harm, largely because of the delay in seeking emergency relief, and noted the open question of federal jurisdiction.
December 23, 2025: A final mediation report was filed stating that the case did not settle.
January 30, 2026: Bonnell filed a motion for summary judgment and a statement of undisputed material facts.
March 30, 2026: The court denied Doe's motion for protective order governing public commentary by trial participants. The court also denied Doe's motion for order to show cause and a sealed motion for order to show cause.
April 21, 2026: The court reset the trial for August 10, 2026, and reset calendar call for August 4, 2026. The court also set a July 28, 2026 deadline for the joint pretrial stipulation. The same order denied both sides’ Rule 11 sanctions motions without prejudice.
May 8, 2026: Doe filed an opposition to Bonnell's motion for summary judgment, along with a response to the statement of material facts and supporting affidavits.
May 13, 2026: Bonnell filed a reply in support of summary judgment and additional supporting materials.
May 18, 2026: Doe filed a motion for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2), alleging spoliation of evidence.
June 1, 2026: Bonnell filed an opposition to Doe's Rule 37(e)(2) sanctions motion and supporting affidavits.
June 3, 2026: Bonnell filed a motion to seal.
June 30, 2026: The court set a hearing on Doe’s sanctions motion and her related motion to seal for July 29, 2026, and removed the case from its trial calendar, saying trial would be reset after the court rules.
July 23, 2026: The court moved the sanctions hearing to August 19, 2026.
August 17–18, 2026: Doe filed supplemental declarations supporting the sanctions motion, including one from a witness filed under seal. Bonnell filed objections to those declarations.
August 19, 2026: The court held the hearing on the sanctions motion and the motion to seal, with an order to follow.
August 26, 2026: The court put Bonnell’s summary judgment motion on hold pending the sanctions ruling. It also struck two responses Doe filed to Bonnell’s objections, because the court had not given either side permission to file anything further on the motion.
September 4, 2026: The court stayed both the summary judgment motion and Bonnell’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction until it rules on sanctions.
September 8, 2026: The court set an evidentiary hearing and oral argument on the sanctions motion for October 2, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. This was the most recent filing on the CourtListener docket as of September 30, 2026.
What Happens Next
The next step is the October 2, 2026 evidentiary hearing on Doe’s sanctions motion. After it, the judge will decide whether evidence was lost or deleted, whether it was done on purpose, and what, if anything, to do about it. That ruling will shape the rest of the case: only then does the court plan to take up Bonnell’s summary judgment motion and his motion to dismiss, and set a new trial date.
A judge can rule from the bench or later in a written order, so the timing of a decision is not known. This page will be updated when the docket shows a ruling.
What the Court Has and Has Not Decided
The court has made several procedural rulings. It allowed Doe to proceed under a pseudonym, entered protective and sealing-related orders, denied certain emergency and protective relief, allowed an amended complaint, and reset the trial schedule and then removed the case from the trial calendar pending a ruling on sanctions.
However, the docket reviewed does not show that the court has entered a final ruling deciding whether Bonnell is liable for the claims in the complaint. The allegations remain allegations unless and until they are proven, admitted, settled, or resolved by the court.
Why the Case Is Being Watched
The case involves allegations of nonconsensual disclosure of intimate material, a federal claim under 15 U.S.C. § 6851, a Florida sexual cyberharassment claim, and online public figures. It also includes a long procedural record involving sealing disputes, discovery disputes, injunction requests, summary judgment briefing, and sanctions motion practice.
For readers tracking online privacy litigation, the most important current points are straightforward: the case is pending, there is no trial date, and the outcome of the evidence-preservation dispute will shape what comes next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Doe v. Bonnell a class action lawsuit?
No. The docket identifies Doe v. Bonnell as an individual federal civil case brought by Jane Doe against Steven K. Bonnell II. It is not listed as a class action.
What does the complaint allege?
The complaint alleges that Steven K. Bonnell II unlawfully disclosed and disseminated intimate images or videos of Jane Doe without her consent. These are allegations, and the court has not entered a final judgment on the merits.
What is the latest court update?
The August 10, 2026 trial did not take place. On June 30, 2026, the court took the case off its trial calendar until it rules on Jane Doe's motion for sanctions, which alleges Bonnell failed to preserve or deleted electronic evidence. Bonnell opposes the motion. The court has also put Bonnell's summary judgment motion and his motion to dismiss on hold until that ruling. An evidentiary hearing on the sanctions motion is set for October 2, 2026, in Miami. No trial date, verdict, judgment or settlement appears on the docket as of September 30, 2026.
What is Steven Bonnell’s defense in the Pxie lawsuit?
Bonnell denies the claims. In sworn declarations he says the video was consensually recorded, that he sent it once, in April 2022, to a friend using the name “Rose,” and that an unknown third party later got into Rose’s account and posted it on Kiwi Farms in November 2024. He denies sending it to anyone else, including a person Doe calls “Abbymc.” These are his claims; the court has not decided them.
Why does it matter whether the video was sent in April or October 2022?
The federal law Doe sued under, 15 U.S.C. § 6851, took effect October 1, 2022. Bonnell argues it does not reach anything sent before that date and that, without the federal claim, the case does not belong in federal court. Doe reads the leaked message date as October 4, 2022, while Bonnell says it is a European-format date meaning April 10, 2022. His motion to dismiss on that basis is on hold pending the sanctions ruling.
Is there a settlement or claim form?
No settlement or consumer claim form is shown in the docket materials reviewed for this update. The case remains litigation between the parties.
Sources
• Complaint, Doe v. Bonnell, No. 1:25-cv-20757• CourtListener docket, Doe v. Bonnell, No. 1:25-cv-20757
• Bonnell’s Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction, ECF No. 132 (Sept. 19, 2025)
• Declaration of Steven K. Bonnell II, ECF No. 132-1 (Sept. 19, 2025)
• Order on Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction, ECF No. 143 (Oct. 6, 2025)
• Dexerto — Destiny responds to accusation of illegally sharing woman’s private images (January 2025)
• Dexerto — Destiny responds after being sued in cyber sexual harassment lawsuit (February 2025)
• Deltia’s Gaming — Destiny responds to Pxie’s allegations, presents a “manifesto”
• Deltia’s Gaming — “I have been the most horribly impacted”: Destiny responds after court documents are released
• 15 U.S.C. § 6851, Civil action relating to disclosure of intimate images
• Florida Statute § 784.049, Sexual cyberharassment
About This Page
OpenClassActions.com is a consumer news and legal information site. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. This page summarizes public court filings and docket activity for informational purposes only. Allegations in a complaint are not findings of fact unless admitted or proven in court.
