Sekhar v. United States, No. 12-357; U.S. Supreme Court; opinion by Scalia, J.; concurrence by Alito, J.; decided June 26, 2013. On certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Investments for the employee pension fund of the state of New York and its local governments are chosen by the fund's sole trustee, the state comptroller. After the comptroller's general counsel recommended against investing in a fund managed by FA Technology Ventures, the general counsel received anonymous emails demanding that he recommend the investment and threatening, if he did not, to disclose information about the general counsel's alleged affair to his wife, government officials and the media. Some of the emails were traced to the home computer of petitioner Sekhar, a managing partner of FA Technology Ventures. Petitioner was convicted of attempted extortion, in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), which defines "extortion" to mean "the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right," § 1951(b)(2). The jury specified that the property petitioner attempted to extort was the general counsel's recommendation to approve the investment. The Second Circuit affirmed.
