Opioid Treatment Clinic Operators’ Extortion Convictions Upheld

Brothers who threatened an investor in their opioid treatment clinic in an effort to get him to sign over his interest to a friend of theirs were properly convicted of extortion, the First Circuit said June 5.

The government sufficiently showed the brothers’ effort to obtain property had the necessary de minimis effect on interstate commerce in violation of the Hobbs Act, the opinion by Judge Bruce M. Selya said.

Jambulat and David Tkhilaishvili talked Victor Torosyan into investing in their clinic. After all the papers were signed and Torosyan invested over $500,000 in the clinic, the brothers threatened him ...