Mgm Mirage
FN5. Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 311-12, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957), overruled on other grounds by Burks v. Wynn Resort and Casino Hotel, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 368, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117 (1931); see also U.S. v. Garcia, 992 F.2d 409, 415-16 (2d Cir.1993).
FN6. Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 56-57, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991); Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420, 90 S.Ct. 642, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 (1970) ("[W]hen a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive, ... the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged.").
FN7. Griffin, 502 U.S. at 59, 112 S.Ct. 466 (emphasis added).
NRS 205.320 defines extortion. A person is guilty of extortion if, with the intent to gain something, he directly or indirectly threatens: 1. To accuse any person of a crime; 2. To injure a person or property; 3. To publish or connive at publishing any libel; 4. To expose or impute to any person any deformity or disgrace; or 5. To expose any secret .... [FN8]
FN8. NRS 205.320.
Claiming to be an individual's half-brother is not an accusation of a crime or an injury to a person or property. Nor does it expose or impute to a person any deformity. To constitute a factual basis for extortion, such a claim must therefore involve libel, disgrace or a secret.
The extortion statute does not contain a definition of "libel." However, criminal libel is defined in NRS 200.510, [FN9] which states:
FN9. NRS 200.510 is found in provisions of the statutes relating to publishing libel (NRS 200.550) or threatening to publish libel (NRS 200.560).
1. A libel is a malicious defamation, expressed by printing, writing, signs, pictures or the like, tending ... to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation, or to publish the natural defects of a living person ... and thereby to expose them to public hatred, contempt or ridicule. .... 3. In all prosecutions for libel the truth may be given in evidence to the jury, and, if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libelous is true and was published for good motive and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted, and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the fact. No definition is given for "defamation"; however, in the civil context, we have defined defamation as "a publication of a false statement of fact." [FN10] NRS 200.510 similarly implies that libel must be false as truth may serve as the basis, in part, for an acquittal.