Springtime for Autumn Jackson

02/19/1999 at 12:00 AM EST

A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned Autumn Jackson's 1997 conviction on charges she tried to extort $40 million from Bill Cosby by threatening to tell the tabloids that she was his illegitimate daughter. In New York City, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the judge improperly instructed the jury on the law pertaining to extortion. The court also overturned the convictions of two accomplices -- Jose Medina and Boris Sabas -- for the same reason, ordering the case returned to the lower court for a retrial. The court added, however, that "evidence at trial was plainly sufficient to support verdicts of guilty had the jury been properly instructed."