## Facts

- New York’s Common Retirement Fund is managed by the State Comptroller, who has sole authority to approve investments.
- The Comptroller relied on advice and recommendations from the fund’s General Counsel.
- The Comptroller considered investing in a fund managed by FA Technology Ventures, which would have generated substantial fees for FA.
- After learning of an investigation involving an agent connected to a related FA fund, the General Counsel advised against the investment, and the Comptroller declined it.
- The General Counsel then received anonymous emails demanding that he reverse his recommendation and urging approval of the investment.
- The emails threatened to expose an alleged extramarital affair to the General Counsel’s wife, public officials, and the media if he did not change his recommendation.
- Investigators traced the emails to Giridhar (Tejas) C. Sekhar, a managing partner at FA Technology Ventures with a financial interest in the investment proceeding.
- A jury convicted Sekhar of, among other offenses, attempted extortion under the Hobbs Act; the jury was instructed that the “property” was the General Counsel’s recommendation and ability to provide investment advice.
- The Second Circuit affirmed, treating the recommendation as “intangible property” under the Hobbs Act.

## Issues

1. Whether attempting to compel a government attorney to issue a favorable investment recommendation constitutes an attempt to “obtain[] property from another” under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(2).

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed unanimously.
- Attempting to force the General Counsel to change his recommendation was not an attempt to “obtain property from another” within the Hobbs Act’s definition of extortion.
- The Court held that Hobbs Act extortion requires both deprivation and acquisition of property, and the property must be capable of being transferred from the victim to the defendant.
- A person’s recommendation (and the right to make it) is not transferable property; at most, Sekhar attempted to influence how the General Counsel performed his duties.
- Justice Alito, joined by Justices Kennedy and Sotomayor, concurred in the judgment, agreeing that a single instance of legal advice or a recommendation is not property that can be “obtained” under the Hobbs Act.

## Legal Principles

- Hobbs Act extortion requires “obtaining” property from another, not merely coercing or pressuring a person.
- “Obtaining” entails acquisition; the defendant must seek to take possession of something of value, not simply cause a victim to act differently.
- For Hobbs Act extortion, the relevant “property” must be transferable—capable of passing from the victim to the defendant.
- Professional judgment, legal advice, or an official recommendation is not “property” that can be obtained through extortion because it cannot be transferred to and held by the defendant as the victim’s property.
- Construing the Hobbs Act to reach coercion of decision-making without acquisition of transferable property would expand the statute beyond its text into a general federal anti-coercion law.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Hobbs Act covers only schemes to acquire transferable property from a victim; threats used to force a government lawyer to change an investment recommendation may be wrongful, but they do not constitute extortion because no obtainable “property” is sought.


Sekhar v. United States, 570 U.S. 729 (2013)