Word: extort
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...YORK: Autumn Jackson was found guilty of attempting to extort money from Bill Cosby by threatening to tell tabloid newspapers she was his out-of-wedlock child. She was also convicted of conspiracy and crossing state lines to commit a crime, and faces up to 12 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Co-defendant Jose Medina, 51, was convicted of the same three counts. A third defendant, Boris Sabas, 42, was convicted of conspiracy and crossing state lines, but acquitted of extortion charges. Jackson, 22, has portrayed herself as an innocent and abandoned child who merely wanted...
...white marble federal courthouse in New York City is a three-hankie affair. On the prosecution side is Bill Cosby, battling an attack on his reputation as America's Dearest Dad. At the defense table sits Autumn Jackson, 22, the woman who is charged with trying to extort $40 million from Cosby in exchange for not publicizing a story that could brand Cosby Deadbeat Daddy Dearest. The tug of sympathies is palpable. Does one side with Cosby, a man who has achieved heroic stature since the tragic shooting of his only son last January? Or does one go with...
...effect on readiness for battle. Yet the brass has been unconvinced, especially when fraternization--the extracurricular association of officers with enlisted personnel--was involved. Fraternization was outlawed even when it referred primarily to poker games between lieutenants and grunts. Today commanders face nightmare scenarios of officers using rank to extort sex, of favoritism and jealousy eating away at the chain of command and hard-won troop morale, of subordinates wondering if their officer sent them on a particularly dangerous mission to avoid assigning it to a lover. Very few courts-martial involve adultery alone: frequently it is coupled with fraternization...
...simple appeal of cartoons to studio bosses is that talent on both sides of the camera comes cheap. The "stars" work for free; they have no agents; they can't extort you for a sequel. And as The Simpsons' Matt Groening has said, "Animated characters don't get busted, and they don't get old." As for the animators, salaries are a little higher than when Jones joined Warner in 1933 for $18.50 a six-day week. But until DreamWorks entered the picture, creators of even the most boffo animated films got no royalties. George Lucas made zillions from...
...charmed lives were drawn back. It turned out the couple had separated about a year ago, and were in the middle of difficult divorce proceedings. The three Native American children the couple had adopted had led troubled lives to varying degrees--one had even been charged with trying to extort money from Dorris and Erdrich. And Dorris was living under another cloud: he was being investigated by the Minneapolis police department on charges that he had sexually abused one or more of his young daughters. Just nine days before his death, police had searched his Minneapolis home for evidence...