Don’t need answer fast.
Just a hypothetical: Say Joe is being blackmailed by Frank. Frank is stupid enough to write a letter with the threat. Joe then retaliates by basically saying “if you ever contact me again I’ll send your blackmail letter to the Feds”. I suppose that this is also a form of blackmail but could Joe be in trouble if the authorities ever got wind of this?
I don’t see how telling someone you will report a crime and turn over evidence could get you into trouble. I think blackmail, however, is generally a state crime rather than federal, at least in the U.S.
The only trouble I could see you getting into would be not reporting the crime in the first instance. But again, with a few exceptions like suspected child abuse if you’re a required reported, I don’t believe failure to report a crime is a crime.
Blackmail is a strange crime. It’s perfectly legalfor attorneys to do it routinely as part of a legal process.
In fact, in that recent famous blackmail case where a man tried to blackmail/extort David Letterman : if he had had an attorney send a letter threatening to file suit for a “discriminatory work environment” where “coworkers who performed sexual services for the boss got favorable treatment”, it would de facto have been the same thing. The letter would state in legalese that “this can be settled pretrial and nothing need be disclosed to any third parties” (such as Letterman’s wife).
That man wouldn’t have been risking jail, and he might have even gotten some money out of it.
IANAL (and never regretted it). I could imagine that several details would be relevant in deciding what crimes may have been committed.
Party A does [some ill-considered act] and Party B demands [insert some demand here] or else he will expose Party A’ actions.
These considerations might be relevant:
(1) What was Party A’s original act? Was it illegal or merely highly embarrassing? If illegal, was it some minor crime or some heinous high crime?
(2) What did Party B demand? Did he demand a bribe? Did he demand Party A to do some additional act? If so, did he demand Party A do some illegal act, or just some embarrassing act, or some expensive and difficult or dangerous act?
(3) What did Party B threaten to do if Party A does not cooperate? Report act to authorities? Report act to Fox News? Report act to Party A’s wife? Publish act on a blog?
All those variables would make a difference, I think.
I was thinking Party A (Joe in my example) did something embarrassing, like going on a date with Paris Hilton, and Frank has pictures. Nothing is illegal until Frank’s threat. Say Frank demands $1k or he releases the pictures anonymously to the internet.
Simply threatening a person is not blackmail. It’s blackmail if you threaten someone with harm unless they do something for you. It would probably be illegal to threaten to turn a blackmailer in to the police unless the blackmailer paid you not to.
BTW, I would expect most blackmail to violate state law, not federal law. The feds could get involved if the blackmail were interstate, or if it threatened a federal employee in his or her official capacity.
That is incorrect. You are describing extortion. Blackmail is specifically threatening to reveal embarrassing, damaging, or incriminating information.
Merriam-Webster agrees with me, as does Wikipedia, dictionary.com and the legal dictionary at law.com.
It is not blackmail, for example, to tell an embezzler you are going to turn him in to the police, or to tell an adulterer you are going to inform his or her spouse. It would be blackmail to demand money in exchange for not doing this.
Blackmail is a form of extortion that involves the threat of revealing information. Other forms of extortion can involve physical threats or threats to property. These aren’t blackmail.
I’m not sure which of us is less clear on what’s going on, but I think you have the lead.
Obviously, both extortion and blackmail include the elements of extracting payment or favors and of doing so by means of threat. Your post said “It’s blackmail if you threaten someone with harm unless they do something for you.” That, as I said, is extortion. It’s only blackmail if the harm threatened is, as I said, “to reveal embarrassing, damaging, or incriminating information.”
You appear to have misunderstood not only what part of your post I was disagreeing with, but which part I was not disagreeing with.
:smack:
I see now that I was thinking one thing and wrote another, then didn’t pick up on it when you pointed out that I was wrong. Sorry about that.
I am pretty sure, in most jurisdictions, if the original thing you were being blackmailed over was a crime, conspiring to keep the evidence your blackmailer has from the authorities would be a crime in its own right.