Is demanding money for a photo a form of extortion?

Jett Travolta, the sixteen-year-old autistic son of John Travolta died from a seizure in his parent’s home in the Bahamas on January 23, 2009. While he was dying in an ambulance on the way to the hospital; ambulance driver, Tarino Lightbourne allegedly took a photograph of the dying boy. Later, he and Pleasant Bridgewater, a Bahamian senator, contacted the boy’s father and threatened to leak the photo to the public if the Travolta family didn’t pay $20 million ransom for the photo. That same day, the police in the Bahamas arrested the three alleged extortionists.

Senator Bridgewater claims that she doesn't understand "how these innocent actions can be so misconstrued," and calls the charges against her "untrue and unfair." The question that will have to be answered by the trial judge is; ‘is demanding money for a photo after threatening to leak it to the public, ‘innocent actions’ or do they come under the heading of ‘attempted extortion’ that is worthy of punishment?

Extortion is the unlawful extraction of money or property through intimidation or undue exercise of authority. It may include threats of physical harm, criminal prosecution, or public exposure. Some forms of threat, especially those made in writing, are occasionally singled out for separate statutory treatment as blackmail.

In this particular case, the words, intimidation, threat of public exposure by leaking the photo to the public and demanding an excessive or exorbitant amount of money from the parents for the photograph of their dying child certainly comes within the description of extortion.

If the three suspects had merely offered to sell the photo to the Travoltas for a reasonable sum and didn’t make the threat that they would sell the photo to the news media if the Travoltas didn’t buy the photo from them, that wouldn’t constitute extortion. Even if their request for money was for a very large sum of money but no threat was included in the discussion that that took place, it still would not constitute a threat. After all, some parents may desperately want a photograph of their son or daughter that was taken moments before his or her death.

The ambulance driver had no right to take the photograph, especially when it was his intention to ask for money from the boy’s parents. It is not his place to take photos of dying people in his ambulance. His act was despicable. But because he is part of a threesome that demanded an exorbitant amount of money under a threat, his actions were also criminal.

So far, the ambulance driver has been fired and Senator Bridgewater has resigned her seat in the Bahamian senate. All that is left is for the criminal court to decide what appropriate sentence should be given those three persons who were charged with this despicable act.