Federal law makes it a crime to demand or extort money or anything of value from any person or business using means of interstate of foreign commerce. For practical purposes, communicating any message by mail, phone, email, etc., to another party that contains any threat to injure property or reputation of that party is a crime. It is also a crime to demand payment in exchange for not reporting the other party to law enforcement for alleged criminal activities. Federal extortion by interstate communications carries a possible two year prison sentence.

In a recent example of email extortion prosecution,federal prosecutors brought extortion charges this week against Anthony Digati of California for allegedly trying to extort $200,000 from a life insurance company. According to the government, Digati sent emails to the company’s executives threatening to make false public statements and send out spam messages in order to damage the company’s reputation and cause it millions of dollars in lost revenues.

If you were arrested or investigated for extortion of money by interstate communications in Long Island, then call our Long Island federal extortion defense attorneys at (516)-204-7611 to get professional legal advice.