Garret Ross, Blackhawks minor leaguer, charged in revenge porn case

Chicago Blackhawks minor league player Garret Ross faces a felony charge under Illinois' so-called revenge porn law, according to court documents.

Ross, a forward on the Blackhawks’ AHL affiliate Rockford IceHogs committed the alleged offense August 31. He's been charged with a single count of non-consensual dissemination of private sexual images, a Class IV felony that can result in as many as three years in prison if convicted.

Messages left by Paste BN Sports on Tuesday with the Blackhawks and IceHogs were not immediately returned.

The law that Ross, 23, allegedly broke was put in place last June to prevent sexual images or videos from being made public without the person’s consent.

The victim must be 18 years or older, “identifiable from the image itself or information displayed in connection ” and “engaged in a sexual act or whose intimate parts are exposed,” according to the statute. To be charged under the law, a person “knows or should have known that the person in the image has not consented to the dissemination.”

Ross, 23, was selected in the fifth round of the NHL draft in 2012 and has spent his career in the AHL. Ross last played for the Ice Dogs on March 18, missing the last two Ice Hogs contests. News of the charges surfaced on March 19 when a host on sportstownchicago.com posted about the case on Twitter.

Ross, a native of Dearborn Heights, Mich., is set to return to court for a status hearing on March 28. His lawyer was not listed in the court documents.