blackmail

Plain English

Blackmail is a crime where someone threatens to expose embarrassing, damaging, or incriminating information about another person unless that person pays money or provides something of value. The threat can involve revealing secrets, damaging someone's reputation, or causing physical or financial harm. Blackmail combines elements of extortion (using threats to obtain something) and often involves demands for money or property in exchange for silence.

Example

A person discovers compromising photos of someone and threatens to post them on social media unless the person pays $5,000. This is blackmail because the person is using a threat to extract money by leveraging damaging information.

Used in a sentence

“The defendant was convicted of blackmail after threatening to reveal the victim's private information unless they received $10,000.”

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