In United States v. Koziol, --- F.3d ---, No. 19-50018 (9th Cir. 2021), the Court affirmed a conviction for attempted extortion under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), for threatening to file against an unnamed entertainer a suit asserting salacious and scandalous allegations if the entertainer didn’t settle for $1,000,000; vacated the sentence; and remanded for resentencing.
It is a very long opinion, but the Court's conclusion provides most of what you need to know:
As to the sentence, the Court found the district court plainly erred in failing to apply U.S.S.G. § 2X1.1—which provides guidelines for attempt offenses not otherwise covered by a specific offense guideline. That provision instructs that the district court shall decrease the offense level by three for an attempted offense, “unless the defendant completed all the acts the defendant believed necessary for successful completion of the substantive offense or the circumstances demonstrate that the defendant was about to complete all such acts but for apprehension or interruption by some similar event beyond the defendant’s control.”The Hobbs Act imposes criminal liability for extortion on those who obtain property from another by the “wrongful use of . . . fear.” 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), (b)(2). We conclude that there is no statutory, constitutional, or policy basis to exclude categorically threats of sham litigation from liability under the Hobbs Act. Instead, we must consider the circumstances of such threats to determine if the means used were “wrongful” under the Act, or if the ends were “wrongful” because the defendant sought property to which he knew he had no lawful claim. We hold that Koziol’s threats of sham litigation were wrongful because sufficient evidence supported the jury’s verdict that he sought property to which he knew he had no lawful claim, and we affirm his conviction for attempted extortion under the Hobbs Act.
