The Amazon founder has accused The National Enquirer and its parent company AMI of blackmailing him over revealing photos.
Post written by
Zachary Elsea
I litigate entertainment, intellectual property, and business disputes.
(AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File) ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a post on Medium, Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer of extortion. The publication, Bezos alleges, threatened to publish embarrassing personal photos of Bezos if he did not issue a public statement saying that he has “no knowledge or basis for suggesting that [the Enquirer’s] coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.” With some, including this author, agreeing that the Enquirer’s demand looks a lot like extortion, many have wondered what exactly constitutes criminal extortion.
Extortion and wrongfully coercion is a crime in many states, including New York and California, and it is also a federal crime under certain circumstances. Generally speaking, the law defines extortion as inducing or compelling a person to do something (or abstain from doing something) that they otherwise have a legal right to do (or not do), through wrongful use of force or fear.
Mafia movies provide the most classic examples of extortion. Threatening to physically harm someone or their loved ones unless they comply with a demand is extortion. So is threatening to burn down someone’s storefront if they don’t pay protection money.
But another species of extortion, blackmail, involves threatening to reveal damaging or embarrassing information about someone unless they comply with a demand. The biggest misconception about this type of extortion is that the threatened act must itself be illegal.
