A New Jersey man who was accused of trying to get money from a Maine-based company by falsely claiming that an executive and her husband had sexually harassed him pleaded guilty to extortion Monday in federal court in Bangor.

Patrick Curley, 50, of Passaic, N.J., was applying for a security job at Vescom in Hampden, Maine, when he first met with the company’s senior vice president, Pamela Treadwell, in New York on April 21, 2010, for a job interview.

About a week after the interview, Curley sent an email to Treadwell accusing her and her husband, Dana, of “making condescending and derogatory remarks against him and of proposing that he engage in a three-way sexual fantasy in exchange for a job offer,” according to a prosecution document filed Monday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Fisk Malone.

Curley furthered his extortion attempt in an email to Treadwell the next day by falsely claiming that “he had been discriminated against, sexually harassed and ridiculed,” Malone said in the court document.

Curley made phone calls and sent emails to Vescom’s attorney, Charles Yesnick, and to the company president, Sharif Assal, later in 2010 threatening to sue Vescom, according to court documents.

Curley was subsequently indicted on the extortion charge and arrested on May 15, 2013, in Newark, N.J. He was released on bail and has remained free.

He pleaded guilty before Judge John Woodcock Jr., and faces as much as two years in prison and a fine of as much as $250,000. The date of his sentencing was not immediately available.

Scott Dolan can be contacted at 791-6304 or at:sdolan@pressherald.comTwitter: @scottddolan


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