Statutes: Alaska

(a) A person commits the crime of coercion if, under circumstances not proscribed under AS 11.41.410–11.41.427, the person compels another to engage in conduct from which there is a legal right to abstain or abstain from conduct in which there is a legal right to engage, by means of instilling in the person who is compelled a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, the person who makes the demand or another may

(1) inflict physical injury on anyone, except under circumstances constituting robbery in any degree, or commit any other crime;

(2) accuse anyone of a crime;

(3) expose confidential information or a secret, whether true or false, tending to subject a person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule or to impair the person’s credit or business repute;

(4) take or withhold action as a public servant or cause a public servant to take or withhold action;

(5) bring about or continue a strike, boycott, or other collective unofficial action, if the property is not demanded or received for the benefit of the group in whose interest the person making the threat or suggestion purports to act;

(6) testify or provide information or withhold testimony or information with respect to a person’s legal claim or defense.

(b) It is a defense to a prosecution under (a)(2), (3), or (4) of this section that the defendant reasonably believed that the accusation or exposure was true or that the lawsuit or other invocation of official action was justified and that the defendant’s sole intent was to compel or induce the victim to take reasonable action to correct the wrong that is the subject of the accusation, exposure, lawsuit, or invocation of official action or to refrain from committing an offense.

(c) Coercion is a class C felony.