In November 2009, GE entered into a contract with Stanley for SEO services and reputation management. Stanley was hired because of his ability to improve a firm's online reputation through search results. After approximately one year, however, GE sought to terminate its relationship with Stanley after it determined he had acted outside of his contracted duties. Stanley also created websites that had the ability to damage GE's reputation by associating GE with a scam. Stanley demanded additional payments to end his contractual relationship with GE and to surrender the administrator rights to the websites to GE. From November 2010 through January 2011, GE paid Stanley a total of $80,000 to terminate the relationship.
Posing as "William Davis" and "William Laurence," Stanley transmitted threatening communications, via email and telephone, from foreign countries to GE in the Northern District of Texas. Those communications threatened to post comments on the Internet wrongfully disparaging GE's reputation, if GE did not send money to Stanley.
Because of Stanley's threats to harm GE's reputation through negative Internet posts that would adversely affect GE's ability to conduct business if it failed to send money, GE responded to the wrongful inducement by sending four payments totaling $29,556 by MoneyGram to Stanley in Brasov, Romania.
According to the factual resume, the government could readily prove that Stanley's extortive conduct caused GE to make the above payments and to lose revenue. The extortive conduct also affected interstate commerce. In addition, the government contended that it could readily prove that Stanley engaged in similar extortionate conduct with approximately 40 to 45 victims (including GE).
