How stupid do you have to be to extort the worlds richest man?

Fogdog said:
You mean every court trial where lawyers debate over evidence should end with no conviction?

What you said is nonsense. TBH
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Civil court doesn't require a preponderance of evidence or the requirement to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The National Enquirer is the blue ribbon slopbucket tabloid. No reasonable person would require much valid information to vote for the plaintiff against Pecker.
 
TacoMac said:
That's actually not true most of the time. To be charged with a crime at all, you must have sufficient probable cause that a crime was committed. The question is, more times than not, was this particular person the one who perpetrated the crime.



That's where you're wrong.

Lawyers can't determine it. Judges, who would ultimately sign an arrest warrant, would be deciding it as well. So would a district attorney who applied for the warrant.

Again, if it's widely debatable, then there's so much reasonable doubt already that no DA worth his salt would touch it with a 10 foot poll, let alone a sitting judge.

In the end, extortion is almost always a one way street. Example: I get pictures of you having an affair. I tell you if you don't pay me money, I'll give the pictures to your wife.

What this is isn't that. It's more that they both have dirt on each other, and one is simply saying "If you don't show the dirt you have on me, I wont show the dirt I have on you."

It's not the same thing. Both parties have something to lose. It's more of a quid pro quo than outright extortion. To criminally charge over that would, in the end, do far more harm to Bezos than it would the Enquirer.
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Good heavens. Are you arguing by agreeing with me? Are you changing your stance? I

"sufficient probable cause" -- for a trial where sufficient proof is required to take away a person's freedom. The debate begins the very moment an accusation is made. According to you any debate whatsoever and the accused is automatically innocent.

Maybe you want to back track on what you said a few posts back:
TacoMac said:
And the fact that it's even debatable means there's reasonable doubt, ergo not a crime.
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I'm not wrong about this:

Fogdog said:
That what trials are all about -- debating whether or not a crime was committed.
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OJ was found innocent in his trial. Do you think there is no debate about his actually being innocent? Do you think there was no debate ahead of his trial?

According to you, the moment somebody debates, the accused is innocent.

Unless that is, you want to modify your statement.

TacoMac said:
And the fact that it's even debatable means there's reasonable doubt, ergo not a crime.
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hotrodharley said:
Civil court doesn't require a preponderance of evidence or the requirement to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The National Enquirer is the blue ribbon slopbucket tabloid. No reasonable person would require much valid information to vote for the plaintiff against Pecker.
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a jury of what state? the case doesn't have to be proven to be found guilty..all you need is a trumper jury..they go with their feelz not facts.

winning!
 
hotrodharley said:
I think you possibly misjudge the public.
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No, I actually don't...not very often.

We'll see what happens, but I think worst case scenario the Enquirer loses its deal with the special counsel and Bezos keeps them tied up in civil court for the foreseeable future.
 
Regarding the title... is doesn't make sense to extort poor people. Is there a sweet spot? An optimum level of wealth that makes one a good target for extortion? Maybe this is what happened to the middle class. In a way, it probably did.
 
TacoMac said:
No, I actually don't...not very often.

We'll see what happens, but I think worst case scenario the Enquirer loses its deal with the special counsel and Bezos keeps them tied up in civil court for the foreseeable future.
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I was addressing Schuylar.
 
TacoMac said:
That's the entire problem: Lawyers are doing most of the talking. In legal terms, that's not extortion. That's called a quid pro quo - something for everybody. It's actually perfectly legal.

Now, if some unknown entity that hadn't identified himself and slipped an envelope under the door making demands, then yeah. That's extortion. But when the whole thing is done in the open with lawyers representing both sides and everybody being fully aware of everything being said, that can hardly be construed as extortion.
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You're trying to imply that just because a lawyer set it up, it is not illegal. You sure about that? Ask Michael Cohen about that....

A line was approximated when they implied that his reputation and judgement making should be called into question because he is the CEO of Amazon, that is exactly what they are implying will happen if they release the pictures, this meets the criteria for injury as it puts his career as CEO in jeopardy, and they won't do it if a condition is met - that's implying the risk of injury to a party unless something else of value is delivered (the joint statement that AMI is not a politically motivated shithole)


While they can be protected from naming sources, and I don't think anybody will be prosecuted for electronic eavesdropping, spying, hacking or illegal access to an electronic device - but I believe they did come awfully close to blackmail/extortion.... I even think it deserves a trial....

Regardless I also think Bezos now has a very strong leg to stand on and take them to court and bankrupt them. If Bezos is really the asshole I think he is - that's exactly what he'll do and The National Enquirer will be gone in 1-2 years....

I cannot believe the Enquirer's lawyers thought this was a good idea - they should've just published the story and sold as many copies got the clicks made their money and called it a day - that's what they are good at.....

They thought they were dealing with somebody like Stormy Daniels, or some of the hundreds of broke-ass mistresses they deal with on a yearly basis - they were completely out of their league.....

Bezos within 1-2 days had the dirtiest most unethical players in the PR game on his payroll and dug in...

they should've just called it a day, published and cut off communication channels then hidden behind 'protection of sources' which is 100% legal - and let the Bezos team dig themselves into a grave investigating the mistresses family... hell I'd put a paparazzi on each family member just to catch the Bezos team interrogating them/approaching them - get more clicks.... but what they did is sooo stupid it boggles the mind.

.
 
redivider said:
You're trying to imply that just because a lawyer set it up, it is not illegal.
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Wrong.

The ENTIRE WAY it came about suggest that it wasn't.

What you have here are two stories from two different sides. Here's the timeline on what actually happened:
  • The Enquirer got hold of text, emails and pictures regarding Bezos and his affair.
  • The Enquirer published SOME of those in an article. Nowhere near all of them.
  • Bezos hired his man de Becker to find out how they got hold of all of that and why.
  • de Becker, through investigative means known only to him, came up with the idea that the whole thing was politically motivated.
  • A war of words of sorts begins between the two entities - de Becker and his security firm, and the lawyers representing the Enquirer.
  • Each threatens to go public with information they have at one point or another.
  • Finally, the enquirer offers this deal: you don't publish your shit, we wont publish any more of ours. We call it all quits right here.
That's basically it.

It's not like the enquirer asked for money, some kind of payoff, whatever. It was simply a "we'll stop if you stop" offer. Nothing more.

That, in the vast majority of jurisdictions, doesn't make the case for extortion. That is more of a quid pro quo as I've said before - you do something for me, I'll do something for you. Only in this case it's simply, "Look, I'll quit if you quit".

There was never a threat of "if you don't quit, we'll publish this".

It's not the same thing...or at least in about 80% of cases it isn't.

EDIT TO ADD:

The whole premise behind extortion is that there's a treat involved and it's one sided.

There's a big difference between:
  • If you don't give me your car, I'll beat your brains out.
and
  • If you give me your car, I'll give you 5,000 dollars.
This is no different. They didn't say:
  • If you do anything with that information, we'll publish all the dirt we have on you!
they said:
  • We'll not publish any more of our stuff if you don't publish any more of your stuff.
One is a threat. The other, in layman's terms, is an offer.
 
Last edited:
you are mis-representing the facts.

It wasn't -

If you do this, we do that.

It was if you don't do this, we can do that, which by the way, can harm your reputation as a man of good judgement.

The fact it is mentioned changes the whole game.

If the dumbasses would've kept it - Mr. Bezos is a public figure and is subject to public scrutiny - you might have a leg to stand on. But here is the implication that he might be called into question (judgement is a thing of value to Jeff Bezos, as it is what he is paid for as CEO of Amazon)

"With millions of Americans having a vested interest in the success of Amazon, of which your client remains founder, chairman, CEO, and president, an exploration of Mr. Bezos’ judgment as reflected by his texts and photos is indeed newsworthy and in the public interest."

This is where they fucked up and where an extortion case can be made - they specifically pointed to the thing of value that could be harmed with their action. That sentence is what could sink the National Enquirer ship.

Edit:

The WAPO published a story of political bias in reporting because AMI paid for stories then buried them to help a political candidate. AMI wanted WAPO to retract the story and issue a statement of 'Sorry'. When WAPO refused they went directly to Bezos, who owns the paper, and said "Look, if you don't do it we'll publish these photos which can harm your reputation"...

It's clear as day. They had to keep quiet and not point to the reputation being harmed, They call it 'Exploration" ... yeah... it's like calling my burnt toast charcoaled bread slices....
 
I think the lawyer that wrote the e-mail is a dumbass, jacked up on blow thinking 'we got them and they're interested' and just hit send.

I think Bezos knows who stole the photos already, it is likely her brother, and she begged him not to show the evidence to police - hence he's never going to be charged.

I also think that a lack of fair prosecution doesn't preclude the facts.

I know of a case where a lady hit somebody while driving drunk, the person died. The rich family stepped in with a solid 7 figure settlement for the family, and they wrote to the prosecutor that they shouldn't prosecute the driver because she was really really really sorry and the family had given them some cash and made their lives better yada yada yada.... lady was never prosecuted, that doesn't mean she didn't kill someone while drunk driving.....
 
It was never about getting them arrested, or about cash in a damage claim. This is big boy politics.

And as the title to the thread says, it's pretty dumb to pick a fight with the richest man in the world.
 
I'll just leave this here and be done with it:

"The clear threat from Bezos' point of view is that we're going to link you to Saudi Arabia, we're going to say that you hacked all of these texts, we're going to slander the publication as much as we can. So that's why lawyers sit down and lawyers negotiate to try to resolve differences. That's exactly what this was." - Elkan Abramowitz

It was Bezos threatening The Enquirer. They were going to intentionally slander the paper even though they knew it was false.

The Enquirer was trying to pay off Bezos by promising not to publish another story.

Who was "extorting" who depends entirely on which side you believe.

When both sides are threatening each other, that's not extortion. Again, that's wheeling and dealing on both their parts.
 
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