Bettendorf Woman Sentenced for Extortion
| U.S. Attorney’s Office December 10, 2012 |
DAVENPORT, IA—On December 6, 2012, Theresa Kay Hunt, age 49, of Bettendorf, Iowa, was sentenced to time served for attempted extortion, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. Chief United States District Judge James E. Gritzner also sentenced Hunt to one year of supervised release, including four months’ home confinement.
Hunt contacted the Viewer Relations Department at Discovery Communications, Inc., and threatened to release damaging photos of a cast member of the show “19 Kids and Counting” if Discovery did not pay her $10,000. Hunt e-mailed pictures of the cast member to an undercover FBI agent and stated that she had more pictures buried in a box at her parent’s home.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.