Blackmail, Extortion, and Sextortion

Discretion is everything

Your privacy is our cause

There’s a reason you haven’t heard about these cases.

Many of our clients are at the peak of very successful and public careers when a destructive person enters their lives and sees our clients’ success as a bargaining chip for blackmail and extortion. Enter us.

We are experts at making these bad actors go away forever and in protecting our clients’ valuable reputation while it’s happening.

In cases where our clients already have trusted lawyers, we bring our expertise to the team. In addition to our excellent lawyers, we have a team of highly skilled operators we can dispatch at a moment’s notice. They include military trained cyber-intelligence investigators, private investigators, search engine suppressors. If you are not sure if you’ve been attacked, we can do open source intelligence and figure that out.

We have special software to archive anything on the web so that it’s admissible in court. We also have relationships with every major social media company and search engine. So if malicious content already is on the Internet, we just pick up the phone.

“The team at C.A. Goldberg PLLC delivered exactly as promised. Not only were they able to execute on a sensitive social media concern of mine, but they also delivered professional intake and case management services. They combined the best of cyber security and legal services available for the new world of digital security. I highly recommend the firm. ” – Male, Chief Executive Officer

Our stats speak volumes

C.A. Goldberg, PLLC has a proven record of success controlling our clients’ exposure online and off.
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Number of URLs removed from search engine results when client's name is searched
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URLs removed entirely from the Internet
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Anonymous online accounts (and people) de-anonymized
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Social media and email accounts banned
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Intimate images removed from the web
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Sex videos removed from the web
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Cease and desist letters sent to formerly anonymous offenders
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Restraining orders our attorneys have obtained for clients
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Cases resulting in open police investigations

We handle the following:

  • Real Time Crisis Management  – The moment the threat is acted on, we will collaborate with our contacts at major social media companies and adult websites to remove the explicit content.
  • Existing Content Removal – Extensive removal of sexually graphic content and/or private and potentially embarrassing information inform from social media, adult websites, message-boards, and review-based sites.

Sextortion is a fraught term because really we’re dealing with extortion and/or coercion, plain and simple. At this point, though, even the FBI uses the term. It usually involves sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is used to control the victim, such as in sex-trafficking situations. It is also used when somebody is coerced into doing something and threatened with the release of sexual images.

This is a crime of the digital age. It’s complicated because often the perpetrator is anonymous or impersonating another person and may live on the other side of the world. They also may be masking their IP address or using TOR. When the perpetrator is unknown, it’s harder to get the attention of law enforcement.

Common scenarios involve victims who meet a stranger in a chatroom or on social media. Over a period of time the stranger earns the victim’s trust and gets the victim to send nude images or strip via webcams. After nude images are sent, the stranger then reveals himself to be of malicious intent and threatens to distribute the images to the victim’s friends, families, and employers if the victim does not provide more, pay money, or perform sexual favors. Underage victims are often the prey of sextortion schemes. Sometimes the offender is known to the victim, such as in situations when a pimp threatens to distribute naked images when a sex trafficking victim tries to leave the business.

Victims are also limited in the civil relief they can seek because it could be very time consuming and expensive to sue somebody internationally or enforce a restraining order.

  • How can you be prepared for the worst if you don’t know what the worst is? We can create a detailed Vulnerability Report that outlines your professional and personal exposures that could follow an extortionist’s malicious actions.
  • Strategic counsel and advice on how to discuss your crisis with employers, family, and other loved ones.
  • Many of our clients and potential clients are scammed by unknown offenders hiding behind aliases, unknown numbers and false profiles. We open lawsuits against these John/Jane Does and subpoena internet companies to uncover their true identities. Once we do this, we send the offenders Cease and Desist Letters, obtain Family Court Orders of Protection, advocate for their criminal arrests, or sue the daylights out of them in order to find justice for our clients.

You probably know our clients

But you probably do not know their stories.
  • Representation of a celebrated author against an obsessed woman who made false representations about an affair on various impersonating social media accounts.
  • Representation of a CEO of international business in family court and civil court to enjoin a malicious website.
  • Representation executive of Fortune 500 company whose teenage daughter was victim of revenge porn.
  • Representation of a world-renowned doctor against extorting ex-mistress.
  • De-anonymized super-fan of child actor and sent cease and desist
  • Removed malicious social media accounts and photos from Internet after crooked boudoir photographer published marital photos of dotcom executive without consent.
  • Representation of real estate scion against an anonymous woman on OKCupid who threatened to post embarrassing emails exchanged with her son, a medical student.
  • Representation of a reality star whose malicious super-fan was threatening to falsely out him as gay.
  • Removed 12 search engine results for international commodities trader targeted by website falsely accusing him of fraud.
  • Advised publicists for world famous pop star whose underage sex video was being marketed to tabloids.
  • Representation of managing partner of a law firm whose college-aged daughter was being threatened with revenge porn.
We are not your attorney. Nothing on our website, blog, or social media should be interpreted as legal advice or the creation of an attorney-client relationship. You should not act or rely on the basis of information on this site without seeking the advice of an attorney. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Please keep in mind that the success of any legal matter depends on the unique circumstances of each case: we cannot guarantee particular results for future clients based on successes we have achieved in past legal matters.