A Romanian national has pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge relating to a 2007 home invasion that saw the perpetrators inject two adult victims in Connecticut with what they said was a deadly virus and demand millions of dollars for the antidote. Stefan Alexandru Barabas, 38, is the last of four suspects to …
South Carolina lawmakers last week passed “Gavin’s Law,” making sexual extortion — “sextortion” — a crime punishable by five years in prison on the first offense. The law was named after Gavin Guffey, the 17-year-old son of State Rep. Brandon Guffey who committed suicide weeks after his high school graduation last year after scammers duped …
A 17-year-old Michigan high school student who died by suicide last week did so just hours after someone demanded money from the teen to keep a compromising photo from his parents and friends. Investigators at the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office said they don’t usually release information about suicides, but the parents of Jordan DeMay requested …
Attorney Michael Avenatti, who represented adult film star Stormy Daniels in a series of lawsuits against President Donald Trump, was sentenced in New York on Thursday to 30 months in prison for trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike. According to the Associated Press, Avenatti, 50, represented a Los Angeles youth basketball league organizer …
An Arizona man was arrested last week on a string of charges relating to his increasingly bizarre behavior over money he and his brother inherited from their grandparents. Mesa police said they began their investigation in March when the victim contacted them to say he was being threatened by his brother, Ross Paul Emmick, despite …
The “victim” of a kidnapping is behind bars in Mississippi after investigators determined there had been no abduction — just an attempt to extort money from the alleged victim’s father. The story began late Thursday night when a Virginia man contacted the Lee County Sheriff’s Department and said he had received a Facetime call showing …
A prostitute with a history of drugs and violence allegedly tried to extort money from a married man, who, according to federal court documents, appeared in a sexually explicit video with her. St. Louis Dispatch reports that 22-year-old Kailynn Havannah Alexandria Moore-Jones denied the extortion charge against her. She pleaded not guilty at the U.S. …
