AMC CEO Sent Woman Photos, She Used Them to Extort Him

The CEO of AMC Theaters sent sexually explicit images and messages to a woman who later tried to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from him. Adam Aron fessed up to the mess Thursday on X after Semafor identified him as the CEO involved in the case. "I became the victim of an elaborate criminal extortion by a third party who was unknown to me related to false allegations about my personal life," wrote the 69-year-old. A New York woman using the name "Mia" first contacted him in March 2022, sharing images of a Russian model, prosecutors said. Aron apparently mistook the model for someone with whom he'd had a prior relationship. He asked "whether she was a ballerina who had done 'unmentionable things' to him," reports Semafor.

Aron later sent pictures of his own, including one of him with another woman, according to the government's sentencing memo. Once she had those pictures, the woman behind the "Mia" persona, Sakoya Blackwood, created other accounts which she used to pose as a vengeful ex-boyfriend and a Vanity Fair reporter who claimed to have seen the images, according to court documents. Blackwood threatened to share the images with the press and with AMC's board unless Aron handed over $300,000, per CNBC. "Offers are coming in like crazy ppl love a scandal," she wrote to Aron while posing as the ex-boyfriend, per Semafor. She also threatened to make a false claim about him having sex with a minor, per CNBC.

"Rather than give in to blackmail, I personally engaged counsel and other professional advisors and reported the matter to law enforcement," the married CEO wrote Thursday. "I did so knowing I risked personal embarrassment. But with my access to resources, if I did not stand up against blackmail, who could?" He said law enforcement asked that he not discuss the case during the investigation and prosecution. He said he informed AMC's board after Blackwood pleaded guilty to cyberstalking in March and was sentenced to time served in July. The woman spent 10 months in jail. AMC's board ordered an independent investigation, "determined it was a personal matter, and considers the issue resolved," according to a statement. (More extortion stories.)