Is exploiting fear enough to constitute a criminal offence?

^3. We nevertheless think it worth noting one issue with the district court's charge, which stated in part that "[i]t is enough that a defendant exploited or attempted to exploit fear that he knew had been created by one or more persons or groups and thereby wrongfully obtained . . . property." This correctly sets out the law if one understands it to preserve wrongfulness as an independent criterion, in the sense of "a defendant exploited fear and thereby obtained property in a way that was wrongful." One might, however, interpret this sentence out of context to suggest that exploiting fear to obtain property is enough, because it is ipso facto ("thereby") wrongful. Such interpretation would expand the crime's ambit to include all sorts of innocent conduct such as, for example, the sale of burglar alarms. Cf. United States v. Abelis, 146 F.3d 73, 84 (2d Cir. 1998). This sentence therefore had potential to mislead, and future courts would do well to phrase it differently.