Threatening to commit a crime is illegal in Massachusetts under G. L. c. 275, § 2.
The alleged victim of the threat, and of the threatened crime, need not be the same person.
For instance, in Commonwealth v. Hamilton, a defendant allegedly threatened to harm his probation officer’s daughter.
In that case, the Supreme Judicial Court wrote,
The issue whether the recipient of the threat must always be the victim of the threatened crime is thus a matter of first impression for this court. By its terms, the language used in § 2 requires a threat (against someone) of a crime (against the person or property of another), but does not state that the threat be issued against the intended crime victim. When the Legislature wishes to require an identity between the target of the threat and the target of the threatened crime, it knows how to accomplish this result. Compare § 2 (crime committed where “a person has threatened to commit a crime against the person or property of another”), with G. L. c. 265, § 43 (crime committed where person “willfully and maliciously engages in a knowing pattern of conduct . . . directed at a specific person which seriously alarms or annoys that person”). Because the Legislature has chosen, in § 2, not to specify that there be identity between the target of the threat and the target of the threatened crime in § 2, we interpret the statute accordingly, and conclude that they need not be the same person.
To read Commonwealth v. Hamilton is its entirety click here.