P.M. BRIEFING : Guilty Plea in Forbes Extortion
A 25-year-old man has pleaded guilty to trying to extort money from the late Malcolm Forbes by threatening to damage the wealthy publisher’s reputation, federal prosecutors said today.
George Warnock of the Bronx pleaded guilty to one count of extortion and faces a maximum possible sentence of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Why he attempted to extort the money from the publisher was not revealed in court papers.
Nancy Northrup, an assistant prosecutor, said that if the case had gone to trial, she would have called a witness from the Forbes organization to testify that Warnock wrote to the publisher in August, 1989, demanding $30,000 to withhold information Warnock claimed was potentially damaging.
A charge was dropped that alleged Warnock sent a similar letter to Malcolm Forbes Jr., Forbes’ son, last March after the publisher died.
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