Autumn Jackson Guilty On Extortion Attempt

NEW YORK: Autumn Jackson was found guilty of attempting to extort money from Bill Cosby by threatening to tell tabloid newspapers she was his out-of-wedlock child. She was also convicted of conspiracy and crossing state lines to commit a crime, and faces up to 12 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Co-defendant Jose Medina, 51, was convicted of the same three counts. A third defendant, Boris Sabas, 42, was convicted of conspiracy and crossing state lines, but acquitted of extortion charges. Jackson, 22, has portrayed herself as an innocent and abandoned child who merely wanted her rightful portion of Cosby's massive fortune. But that defense was dealt a blow when Judge Barbara Jones ruled the issue of paternity was irrelevant to the extortion charge, though the judge allowed the defense to argue that the defendant believed the actor was her father and that she had a legal right to his money. However, the $40 million that Jackson had demanded evidently struck jurors as patently avaricious. Jurors also listened to a tape of a phone conversation recorded by Ms. Jackson in January in which she haggled with Cosby's lawyer, threatening "I have offers and I will go through with those offers," apparently from the tabloid newspaper the Globe. That was about "greed, not need," claimed prosecutor Paul Engelmayer. The jury must have agreed.