AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron Was Goal of Blackmail and Extortion Plot

AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron was the sufferer of a blackmail and extortion plot.

The unconventional CEO disclosed the plot Thursday morning on X (previously Twitter), including that the perpetrator has already been convicted.

“By definition, I reside my life within the public eye. Sadly, final yr I turned the sufferer of an elaborate felony extortion by a 3rd social gathering who was unknown to me associated to false allegations about my private life,” Aron shared. “Quite than give in to blackmail, I personally engaged counsel and different skilled advisors and reported the matter to regulation enforcement. I did so figuring out I risked private embarrassment. However with my entry to sources, if I didn’t arise towards blackmail, who may?”

Based on court docket paperwork, the girl, Sakoya Blackwood, started texting Aaron in March of 2022 pretending to be plenty of totally different folks. Aron initially believed that she “was an grownup girl with whom he had a earlier romantic relationship, particularly a ballet dancer,” in response to the paperwork.

Aron, who’s married, despatched her specific pictures in the midst of texting, in response to the indictment, and Blackwood — pretending to be the fictional girl’s boyfriend and later a journalist for Vainness Honest — threatened to indicate the pictures to the press and AMC’s board except he paid her. Aron as an alternative introduced the extortion try to the eye of the FBI.

“BLACKWOOD engaged in a marketing campaign of harassment, intimidation, and threats towards Sufferer- 1, together with by sending harassing, threatening, and intimidating textual content messages to Sufferer- 1,” in response to the indictment, during which Aron was “Sufferer-1.”

Based on court docket data, Blackwood pled responsible to 1 rely of cyberstalking, and was sentenced to time served and supervised probation.

Semafor first reported the blackmail try.

Aron, lengthy identified for his uncommon administration type (he beforehand ran a cruise line, the Philadelphia 76ers and Starwood Lodges earlier than becoming a member of AMC), has lately turn into generally known as the chief most prepared to lean into being a “memestock,” as AMC’s shares turned in style with retail merchants throughout the pandemic.

Aron sued that investor enthusiasm to nice impact, elevating a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} and unveiling a daily cadence of ventures (like promoting popcorn at supermarkets, and investing in a gold and silver mine) to maintain curiosity excessive.

Extra not too long ago he launched a separate most well-liked inventory referred to as “APE” shares (a reference to what AMC’s retail traders name themselves, “Apes”), and subsequently engineered a merger of these shares with frequent shares, giving the corporate the power to lift much more money, which it did.

In fact AMC, like all theater firms, continues to be affected by the pandemic, and with the continued SAG-AFTRA strike prone to delay motion pictures in 2024, its monetary state of affairs stays fraught.