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I'm assuming the designer doesn't own the website domain. This is like breaking into someone's property, and saying that you won't leave until a demand is met. He should really consult a lawyer before he gets criminally prosecuted.

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I don't believe that the Law works by analogy like that. There are relevant statute would likely be the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which talk about unauthorized access to a computer system. It has its own pitfalls, depending on who owns the computer and who is authorized to do what with said computer, but the "sit-in" analogy won't get you too far in a court of law.

The domain is registered with hostek.com, which is a web hosting company too, so I assume it's hosted there. WHOIS says the domain registration is owned by Onemine. You'd have to ask them and the court system who's actually legally responsible for the computers involved, but it's not looking very NYCFreshMarket-y to me.

Agreed on the ransom, moreover - they gave the site to the owner on good faith that they would get paid, now they are complaining that they were fooled.

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