Some recent celebrity news has made me think about our extortion statute. The statute is G.S. 14-118.4, and it says: Any person who threatens or communicates a threat or threats to another with the intention thereby wrongfully to obtain anything of value or any acquittance, advantage, or immunity is guilty of extortion and such person shall be punished as a Class F felon The recent celebrity news includes the following: "Robert Halderman, the man accused of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, pleaded guilty . . . and will serve six months in jail. . . . Mr. Halderman’s lawyer . . . had argued that his client intended only to write a book or a screenplay about Mr. Letterman’s affairs, but that before going forward with the project, Mr. Halderman simply was offering to sell Mr. Letterman the rights to the story for $2 million." (New York Times City Room, March 10, 2010.) "A Michigan couple was convicted . . . of trying to extort $680,000 from actor John Stamos by threatening to sell old photos of him with strippers and cocaine to the tabloids unless he paid up." (AP, July 15, 2010.) This Los Angeles Times article claims that "extortion is a constant threat to the rich and famous." What I've been thinking about is, where's the line? What if Mr. Halderman had simply taken his evidence of Letterman's affairs and sold the evidence to a celebrity magazine? According to Slate, exclusive photographs of celebrities can be [...]
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