Badger Game.

Part Three. The gift that keeps on taking.

(continued from: Flim Flam, Deception, and Manipulation)

“can you wait a minute?”

“I can wait soo good.”

“oh really…think you can wait a day?”

“Baby I can wait two days!”

“That’s good. Cause I charge by the hour”

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The dialogue is from a very funny portion of a popular film you may have seen in which a prostitute played by Mya Rudolph plays an unlikely variation of a confidence trick (from the family of scams such as the “clip-joint”, “fleshpot”, “Murphy scam” which all consist of taking money without delivery of service) on a John played by Eli Munoz, in which he agrees to pay her to simply keep him waiting for her services without providing anything in return… After all, who is a “mark” in that situation going to tell? They were breaking the law in the first place.

Another risk that someone takes by engaging in black market trades and deals, regardless of whether they receive service for their dollar or are completely duped, is that if there is a single witness they may become “compromised”. Meaning that somebody has found out or led them into the illegal act that now knows about it and can maybe turn them in to law enforcement or even blackmail or extort them out of money or goods or to carry out acts they wouldn’t have otherwise dreamed of.

If they went any place they could be surveilled, used their phone to contact the black marketeer at any point, or left any other possible evidence or even contact details behind they have left the door wide open to a variety of other “games” such as extortion and blackmail. This is what is known as a “badger game”.

Wealthy or famous people often find themselves in the latter position, though when we hear of it, they often come out on top, winning judgements or punitive action against their blackmailers. Some famous examples include Bill Cosby’s “illegitimate child” who attempted to extort him for millions in 1989 and wound up serving 5 years and David Letterman who obtained stopped an NBC producer, Joe Halderman, who would later be convicted, from blackmailing him for 2 million dollars live on national television by admitting to an affair.

non-wealthy people are also susceptible to various forms of cash extortion or blackmail, but it just isn’t lucrative to keep squeezing a stone, hoping it will yield a drop of water when the charges for being caught committing blackmail or extortion would far exceed the benefit.

Blackmailers assume multiple risks. A few risks they may take (but are not limited to) can be incurring a felony charge that often garners massive settlements for the charges to be dropped or prison time if they are not dropped, and depending on the mark may make themselves a target for harm or a threat that their mark feels must be disposed of depending on the content of their hidden knowledge about the mark

Not that all criminals are especially bright, but as in the water from a rock analogy above, if the “juice is not worth the squeeze” then there is no point

Another category who may find themselves being extorted are their own allies. Complicit parties to a scam, ones who thought they were part of the team, may also find themselves in a position to be extorted or blackmailed into helping commit more crimes, silence, or access to another resource they may be key to obtaining. This is a much simpler proposition, though this may affect the other relationships that the perpetrator needs to facilitate future schemes. “No honor among thieves” aside, if any of us watched a business partner blackmail a third partner we would likely be out of there, right? right.

Compromise can be evidence of any range of stigmatic or illegal activity that the mark has taken part in though it does not have to be illegal for somebody to want their secret kept and infidelity isn’t always at the core of compromise, and a marriage isn’t always what is at stake. Sometimes it is as simple as someone’s reputation, and even information about their health. Charlie Sheen, who was allegedly blackmailed by people he knew for between 7.5 and 10 million dollars over the course of 4 years was a prolific drug user and spent $53,000 dollars on prostitutes served to him by Heidi Fleiss. He wasn’t targeted for his wild partying; he was blackmailed later on because he had contracted HIV and attempted to suppress the information due to the stigma attached

One of the ways that a mark may become compromised is through simple communication. Be careful and clear when encountering questions or statements that could have double meanings in any written communication, with a person or group of people, that can be clipped or taken out of context. Be especially careful of this in private messages and over the phone. Always read your message back to yourself to see whether it may become misconstrued in the future.

Once a person is compromised to an extortionist there may be very few acts that they wouldn’t commit in order to stop the sheer psychological trauma of it all. While there is an element of fear involved blackmail is more about guilt or shame and although one may associate the word extortion with something more like a “protection” racket, blackmail is less bullyish and generally doesn’t take physical threats to be effective.

Though blackmail itself is plain on the face and not really so much a “confidence trick” that requires trust… It can be applied to manipulate the words and behavior of the person being targeted which is why I still feel the term “mark” can be used in describing the victim of such an act.