Dykes

MEMORANDUM *

Defendant Isabel Dykes appeals her conviction, after a jury trial, for blackmail, claiming that the conviction was not supported by sufficient evidence. We affirm.

The French-American International School (FAIS) in San Francisco hired Defendant, a British citizen, to teach mathematics. The school gave her the necessary paperwork to fill out so that she could obtain a J-l visa.

Shortly after Defendant arrived in the United States, her relationship with her new employer began to deteriorate. FAIS decided to fire her. It wrote a letter terminating Defendant’s employment and advising her to return to England because her J-l visa “becomes null and void at this time.”

*719 Defendant and her boyfriend responded with a long letter, which became the subject of this prosecution. The heading of Defendant’s letter said that it would detail “[t]he illegal methods systematically used by FAIS to damage those teachers hired from abroad.” (Emphasis in original.) Defendant’s letter referred to the “illegal ” manner in which FAIS tried to harm Defendant and the “illegal extremes to which [FAIS is] prepared to go to achieve this.” (Emphasis in original.) After describing the…