You Sent a Threatening Text Message: Did You Commit a Crime?

Electronic communications, such as email, social media platform messaging, and text messaging, are commonplace forms of communication in today’s world, personally and professionally. When communicating in such an informal manner, it is easy to get carried away with your emotions and send a message during an argument that comes across more strongly than you might have intended. Unfortunately, any threatening message can violate New Jersey law and subject you to potential criminal charges.

Terroristic Threats

You may violate New Jersey’s terroristic threats statute if you threaten to “commit any crime of violence with the purpose to terrorize another.” This statute also applies if you make a threat that causes the evacuation of a building or threaten to kill someone in a way that the person believes you mean to do so imminently. Violating this statute is a third-degree felony, which can result in a sentence of incarceration of up to five years and a fine of up to $15,000.

Criminal Coercion

A person commits criminal coercion under New Jersey law if, to unlawfully restrict another’s freedom of action to engage or refrain from engaging in conduct, they threaten to:

• Inflict bodily injury on anyone or commit any other offense, regardless of the immediacy of the threat;
• Accuse anyone of an offense;
• Expose any secret which would tend to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule or to impair his credit or business repute;
• Take or withhold action as an official, or cause an official to take or withhold action;
• Bring about or continue a strike, boycott, or other collective action, except that such a threat shall not be deemed coercive when the restriction compelled is demanded in the course of negotiation for the benefit of the group in whose interest the actor acts;
• Testify or provide information or withhold testimony or information concerning another’s legal claim or defense; or
• Perform any other act that would not benefit the actor but is calculated to substantially harm another person concerning his health, safety, business, calling, career, financial condition, reputation, or personal relationships.

Depending on the severity of the threat, this criminal offense can be either a fourth or third-degree felony. A fourth-degree felony can result in up to 18 months in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine, whereas a third-degree felony carries the potential for up to five years in prison and a maximum $15,000 fine.

Cyber-Harassment

New Jersey also provides for the criminal offense of cyber-harassment, which occurs when a person, while making one or more communications in an online capacity via any electronic device or through a social networking site and to harass another, does any of the following:

• threatens to inflict injury or physical harm to any person or the property of any person;
• knowingly sends, posts, comments, requests, suggests, or proposes any lewd, indecent, or obscene material to or about a person with the intent to emotionally harm a reasonable person or place a reasonable person in fear of physical or emotional harm to his person; or
• threatens to commit any crime against the person or the person’s property.

Cyber-harassment is a crime of the fourth degree, except that it is a crime of the third degree if the person is 21 years of age or older at the time of the offense and impersonates a minor for cyber-harassing another minor.

Harassment

Harassment under New Jersey law is a petty disorderly persons offense that occurs when a person does any of the following with the intent to harass another:

• Makes, or causes to be made, one or more communications anonymously or at extremely inconvenient hours, or in offensively coarse language, or any other manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm;
• Subjects another to striking, kicking, shoving, or other offensive touching or threatens to do so; or
• Engages in any other course of alarming conduct or of repeatedly committed acts with purpose to alarm or seriously annoy such other person.

Since harassment is a low-level offense, the maximum sentence is six months in jail and a $500 fine. However, if you are in jail or on probation or parole when you send the harassing communication, the offense is a fourth-degree felony, with a potential sentence of up to 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Get the Legal Advice that You Need in Your Criminal Case

The criminal defense lawyers of Rosenberg, Perry & Associates, LLC, can evaluate the allegations of criminal actions against you and develop the defense strategy most likely to be successful in your case. Getting legal advice and representation can be crucial to a positive outcome in your case. You can reach us by phone at (609) 216-7400 or visit us online.