Questions About Extortion? Reach Out to an Attorney No specific business or individual needs to be targeted by these traps, but cybercriminals tend to focus their efforts on larger-scale targets such as corporations with large amounts of data and deeper pockets. Some cybercriminals use a tool known as " ransomware" to encrypt a victim's important files and documents, making them unreadable until a ransom is paid. Cyber extortion is a new way for criminals to find victims and ensnare them via their keyboards or smartphones. ![]() While some may believe that extortion only happens in smoky backrooms or among shady mobster characters, it can also happen in the modern digital world. Many statutes also provide that any threat to harm another person in their career or reputation is extortion. Other types of threats sufficient to constitute extortion include those to harm the victim's business and those to either testify against the victim or withhold testimony necessary to their defense or claim in an administrative proceeding or a lawsuit. ![]() The threat does not have to relate to an unlawful act.įor example, Wisconsin Statues provide in § 943.30: "Whoever, either verbally or by any written or printed communication, maliciously threatens to accuse or accuses another of any crime or offense, or threatens or commits any injury to the person, property, business, profession, calling or trade, or the profits and income of any business, profession, calling or trade of another, with intent thereby to extort money or any pecuniary advantage whatever, or with intent to compel the person so threatened to do any act against the person's will or omit to do any lawful act, is guilty of a Class H felony." It may be sufficient to threaten to accuse another person of a crime or to expose a secret that would result in public embarrassment or ridicule. It is not necessary for a threat to involve physical injury. Threats to harm the victim's friends or relatives may also be included. Nearly all extortion statutes criminalize a threat against the person or property of the victim. If any method of interstate commerce is used in the extortion, it can be a federal crime. Her threat to testify falsely endangers the property interest that the litigant has in the outcome of the lawsuit.Įxtortion can take place over the telephone, via mail, text, email, or other computer or wireless communication. She claims that her memory is unreliable, but she can remember anything he wants her to remember for $1000. Inherent in this common form of extortion is the threat to expose the details of someone's private life to the public unless some form of payment is exchanged.Īnother example is if a witness in a civil case contacts the attorney for one of the litigants and demands to be paid for her testimony in court. Lower values can lead to less serious charges (even misdemeanor charges).īlackmail is a form of extortion in which the threat is to expose embarrassing and damaging information to family, friends, or the public. Usually, states will set the severity of the charge based on the dollar amount extorted from the victim. Extortion is often charged as a felony in most states. ![]() Most states define extortion as the gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force or threat of violence, property damage, harm to reputation, or unfavorable government action. This article provides an overview of the crime. She has become a victim of extortion.Įxtortion is the crime of obtaining money, property, or something else of value by use of a threat, usually of an injury to the victim, the victim's property or reputation, or to the victim's loved ones. The shopkeeper relents and reluctantly agrees to pay him a weekly fee. The man casually lists the names of her four children and mentions that he would hate to see anything "bad" happen to them. A large, intimidating man walks into a profitable liquor store in the heart of the city, not to buy anything but to offer "protection" to the shopkeeper (for a weekly fee, of course).
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