That sounds frustrating. Here are some thoughts:
The link you gave above didn't work for me, but criminal charges would be enormously unlikely no matter what the details of your post or her work. Some posting of material without permission is allowed; some is copyright infringement; but it's incredibly hard to take enough or do enough that you would trigger any criminal laws.
If you can, send more info or a working link. But, either way, take a deep breath. The person you took from sounds angry, but don't let that overwhelm you. Do the right thing (which might be to take it down, as you are doing) and then try to calm things down with the other person. They are upset, maybe rightly, maybe not; but your goal now should be to calm things down and find a graceful exit. (But always take legal threats with a grain of salt. Very few people actually want to spend the money to sue, and very few disputes are worthwhile for anyone to litigate. So usually threats are just threats. Still do the right thing and handle it nicely, but don't feel enormous stress about it. These thnings usually calm down quickly.)
Hope that helps. Feel free to send more info about your post. (I'm heading offline now, but can come back tomorrow.)
Law Professor
Professor of Law at Top-Tier Law School, specializing in patent & copyright
Thank you. It was the reposting of an entire one page article. I did talk to a lawyer who told me that the person threatening me does not have a chance. My biggest fear is being sent to prison. But I am not sure if this will be done on a first time offence.
But the person I talked to does want get paid. I don't know if she would back down.
You really don't need to worry about prison. There is no way that any government officer would go down that route for something so small. So, truly, cross that worry off. You are okay on that score.
On the rest - again, I haven't seen the article - but if you took an entire article, and there aren't good reasons to excuse it, then technically the author does have a right to be upset with you and could in theory sue you. (Good excuses might be in instance where the story is of enormous public importance, where your copying served an important public interest, and where you didn't really hurt them much economically.) But who plausibly would sue over one article? The "win" in court wouldn't be worth all the costs of suing.
So, again, (1) don't worry; it sounds like (at worst) you made an honest mistake, and you took steps to fix it; and (2) try to nicely resolve things with this person, but if they continue to be mean-spirited or they are piggish in what they ask, then don't let them bully you around and let them realize that they really can't make any money suing over such a trivial wrong.
Again, I haven't seen the article and don't know exactly what it's about, but given what you've said here, that's my reaction. (If you are still worried, go hire a local lawyer for half an hour, let them look at all the details, and then you'll know that you have someone on your side in case things get rough. That might be worth it just to give you extra peace of mind.)
Good luck to you. Sorry that this has happened and caused such stress.