Man Who Forced Girlfriend's Naked 'Walk Of Shame' Gets Maximum Sentence

A Manhattan judge hit Jasson Melo, 26, with the maximum sentence for forcing the 22-year-old mother of his child to do a naked “walk of shame” around a Harlem block in January 2016. After forcing her to strip off her clothing, he followed her around the neighborhood with his phone and recorded himself berating her with comments that became a viral video.

Melo, 26, was given a sentence of two-and-a-half to seven years in jail Wednesday by Justice Robert Mandelbaum. It was the max sentence sought by prosecutors in the felony coercion case and Mandelbaum blasted Melo as a twisted misogynist during sentencing in downtown Manhattan.

“Jasson Melo's view of women belongs to the Dark Ages," Justice Robert Mandelbaum said Wednesday, the New York Daily News first reported. “To him, women are property.”

Evidence submitted to the Manhattan Supreme Court for the trial found that Melo subjected his girlfriend to hours of physical violence and threats following the incident which the unnamed victim described as "unexplainable" and "unimaginable." Prosecutors presented evidence to the jury showing that Melo even tried to sell merchandise featuring slogans from the video in which he forced her to strip down and then walk around the Harlem block in January 2016. He could be heard calling her a "whore" in Spanish as he followed behind her in a towel and ultimately in the nude.

The victim, who is also the mother of Melo's child, testified during the trial that she "remains scarred from the fear and humiliation, maybe forever."

"Mr. Melo destroyed me in so many ways, and didn't stop as he would continuously taunt me as if his nightmare was his sick joke," she wrote in court documents presented during the trial. The incident was reportedly ignited by Melo finding text messages from other men in her cell phone, which led to him throwing a Buddha statue at her and endangering the life of the 2-year-old child who was present at the time of the incident.

The victim testified to the court what she could recall of his alleged words before forcing her to perform the shaming walk. "'You know what, you're gonna pay," he told her. 'You're gonna get naked and you're gonna go out on the street, and you're gonna pay.'"