New Hampshire Attorney Guilty Of Extortion For Threatening To Sue Hair Salons, Then Pocketing Cash To "Settle Claims"

In New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor reports:

• A Manchester lawyer who threatened to sue a Concord salon for pricing haircuts differently for men and women and then took money to settle the matter was found guilty of theft by extortion. A jury took about 1½ hours to convict Daniel Hynes, 27, [earlier this month]. Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Baker said Hynes sent letters to at least 19 salons in the state.

• One arrived Dec. 20, 2006, at Claudia's, the North Main Street hair salon owned by Claudia Lambert. In the letter, Hynes said prices should be based on the time a cut takes or on the length of hair, instead of on gender. He wrote: "I demand payment in the amount of $1,000 in order to avoid litigation," according to court documents. Lambert's husband, Ben Nardi, contacted the attorney general's office. He also contacted Hynes. After Hynes came to collect $500 at Nardi's Manchester real estate office, the police arrested him. The misdemeanor conviction carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. Hynes said yesterday that he plans to appeal.

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• [NH Ass't. AG] Baker said that if Hynes wanted to push the salons to change their pricing, he could have sent the letters without demanding money. "It was an effort by an attorney to seemingly use his position as an attorney to demand money that he was not legally entitled to and to make threats of a bogus lawsuit," she said.

For more, see Lawyer guilty of salon extortion (He says conviction violates free speech).