27-year-old man charged with sexually extorting woman in Hoover

Authorities have charged a 27-year-old man with sexual extortion in Hoover.

The man, identified by Hoover police as Franklin Brooks Gray, is accused of threatening to disseminate embarrassing material about a woman unless she agreed to perform sexual acts, Hoover police Lt. Keith Czeskleba said.

The woman reported the crime to Hoover police on Jan. 22, and U.S. marshals arrested him on April 11, Czeskleba said. He was released from the Jefferson County Jail the same day on a $10,000 bond, jail records show.

Sexual extortion is a relatively new crime in Alabama, made illegal by a bill passed by the Legislature in May 2017. Czeskleba said that, as far as he knows, this is the first time Hoover police have had anyone charged with that crime.

The statute says “a person commits the crime of sexual extortion if he or she knowingly causes another person to engage in sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual contact, or in a sexual act or to produce any photograph, digital image, video, film, or other recording of any person, whether recognizable or not, engaged in any act of sadomasochistic abuse, sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual excitement, masturbation, breast nudity, genital nudity, or other sexual conduct by transmitting any communication containing any threat to injure the body, property, or reputation of any person.” It is a Class B felony.