W. Va. Code § 61-2-13

This is the official text of W. Va. Code § 61-2-13, part of West Virginia’s Va. Code — part of the compiled statutory law of West Virginia, published by the state as "Va. Code." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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§61-2-13. Extortion or attempted extortion by threats; penalties.

Official statutory text

(a) A person who threatens, by direct threat, indirect threat, or innuendo, injury to the character, person, property, or any other thing of value of another person, or to the character, person, property, or any other thing of value of his or her spouse, child, or family or household member, as defined in §48-27-204 of this code, residing in the household at the time of the offense, or accuses him or her or them of a criminal offense, and thereby obtains anything of value, or other consideration, or compels the other person, against the other person’s will, to perform any act, he or she is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in a state correctional facility for not less than one year nor more than 10 years. A person who makes such threat of injury or accusation of an offense as set forth in this subsection, but fails to obtain anything of value or other consideration, is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in a state correctional facility for not less than one year nor more than three years and fined not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, or both fined and imprisoned.

(b) For purposes of this section, "consideration" includes sexual contact, sexual intercourse, and sexual intrusion as defined in §61-8B-1 of this code, and private images as defined in §61-8B-6 of this code.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.