A 26-year-old German citizen allegedly demanded $100,000 from Cindy Crawford and husband Rande Gerber, claiming that he had a "sexy photograph" of the couple's 7-year-old daughter. Edis Kayalar said he stole the photo from a former nanny and wanted to return it to the parents so it wouldn't fall into the hands of the tabloids. He then turned around and threatened to sell the photo to the media if the couple wouldn't pay up. Court documents state that Kayalar claimed the photo exposed Crawford's daughter "in revealing clothing, bound to a chair and gagged." According to the court papers, the daughter told her parents that the nanny had taken the picture as part of a "cops and robbers" game. Kayalar was indicted, and the couple are making sure the photograph doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
David Letterman shocked viewers in October when he announced on his show that someone was trying to blackmail him over his sexual relationships with female staffers—and the extorter turned out to be an employee at fellow CBS show 48 Hours. Producer Robert "Joe" Halderman was arrested on charges of attempted grand larceny in the first degree. The extorter allegedly threatened to make the affairs public if he did not pay $2 million. The late-night comedian contacted authorities, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office set up a sting operation that resulted in an arrest after Halderman was caught trying to cash a fake $2 million check. Of the affairs, Letterman told a surprised audience: "Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would… I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family."
The death of John Travolta’s son Jett was painful enough, but in January 2009, a paramedic named Tarino Lightbourn allegedly attempted to extort $25 million from Travolta and wife Kelly Preston not to release a medical document. The document, a “do not transfer” request, was reportedly signed by Travolta when EMTs were attempting to treat Jett in the Bahamas. The Travoltas deny signing such a document, and went to court in the Bahamas in September to testify against Lightbourn and his alleged accomplice Pleasant Bridgewater. The case is still ongoing—TMZ is of course reporting every tiny development that comes out of the Nassau courts.
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Being the richest woman in entertainment has its drawbacks; namely, people will try to blackmail you left and right. So it came to pass with Oprah Winfrey, who was the victim of an extortion plot by the aptly named Keifer Bonvillain. In 2007, Bonvillain allegedly demanded that Winfrey pay him $1.5 million in exchange for not leaking “ damaging recordings of phone conversations” with one of Winfrey’s employees. Oprah immediately involved the FBI, who captured Bonvillain after luring him to an Atlanta hotel with $3,000 and the promise of more cash. After Bonvillain was released on bail, however, he continued to antagonize the television star, filing for $180 million in damages from the suit (the case was later dismissed), and publishing his tell-all book, Ruthless, in January 2008, describing the phone calls and accusing Oprah of being both racist, a miser, and a lesbian. (His rock-solid evidence? “Gay couples enjoy planning things together. Oprah and Gayle have planned balls, parties, charity events, trips, shows, and much more.”) And if all that wasn’t trouble enough, Bonvillain is back with another tell-all book, The Broken Road, exposing FEMA fraud (and drug abuse) after Hurricane Gustav—all backed up by, you guessed it, secret audio tape.
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In July 2007, FBI agents arrested David Hans Schmidt (aka “The Sultan of Sleaze”) for his involvement in several celebrity extortion/sex tape scandals, including one involving Tom Cruise. Schmidt allegedly demanded $1 million from Cruise to return stolen wedding photos from Cruise and Katie Holmes’ 2006 ceremony in Italy. Schmidt’s accomplice, Marc Lewis Gilleman, was sentenced to two years probation in 2008, and told the court,“I brought unimaginable shame upon myself and my family.” Schmidt did not have the chance to apologize for the extortion or any of his other celebrity shakedowns— he hanged himself in September 2007.
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Wedding videos are usually not worth much to anyone but the couple, but then, not every couple involves J. Lo. In 2006, an ex-con named Tito Moses pleaded guilty to grand larceny after trying to shake down Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony for $1 million to not release a stolen copy of their wedding video. A copy of the video was on a laptop stolen from Anthony’s Cadillac Escalade in Linden, New Jersey, and Moses negotiated a ransom for it with an NYC cop prior to his arrest—he thought he was dealing with a press representative for J.Lo. The first rule of extorting a celebrity: When in doubt, there’s probably an undercover cop involved.
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In 2008, the news broke that fashion designer Marc Jacobs was lured into an extortion scheme by 56-year-old New York Armory superintendent James Jackson. Jackson ran the event space where Jacobs hosted many of his fashion shows, and is reported to have solicited more than $40,000 in bribes over the years, including a computer and a Bowflex machine. The Marc Jacobs company later paid $1 million to settle the case in November 2008. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo spearheaded the investigation, issuing this statement: “New York City is a global epicenter for fashion and cultural events, and we will not allow corruption and greed to tarnish one of our most lucrative industries.”
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Roguishly handsome Rhett Butler was the victim of six extortion plots between 1937 and 1940—the FBI has several of the original letters available for viewing here. The plots were seemingly unconnected, coming from all over the country—a woman in Ohio wanted $1,000 to not go public with “dark secrets” (she later turned out to be a prostitute who wrote the letter out of desperation), an escaped asylum inmate in Illinois wanted $5,000, and an ex-convict threatened to kidnap Gable and his wife Carole Lombard in 1940 and hold them for $15,000 ransom. What could Gable’s dark secrets have been? According to The New York Times, a “breathtakingly trashy” biography of Gable published in 2008 suggests that Gable was a closeted homosexual, though author David Bret had trouble backing up his arguments with solid evidence.
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In April 2008, Rob Lowe (who was starring on Brothers & Sisters at the time) revealed on The Huffington Post that he and his wife were the victims of a $1.5 million extortion plot. He wrote, “A former employee is demanding my wife, Sheryl, and I pay her $1.5 million by the end of the week or she will accuse us both of a vicious laundry list of false terribles. It is an attempt to damage and humiliate not only my wife and me, but our two young sons as well.” Lowe argues that he did nothing but help the young woman, aiding her with “personal issues” in her time of need. Lowe vehemently denied the former babysitter’s allegations of sexual harassment, writing, “I won't go away. No one intimidates my family. My wife and I have many former and long -term employees, all of whom know this woman, who can and will refute any claims of anything inappropriate in our home, or anywhere else. We will defend ourselves with vigor and without fear.” The case was dismissed in May 2009 after attorneys for Lowe and the nanny filed for dismissal.
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In 2001, when country darling LeAnn Rimes was only 19, a former bodyguard allegedly attempted to squeeze $2 million out of the singer, threatening to sell photographs and videotapes of Rimes to tabloids. Police arrested Robert Lavetta on these claims, and he made a deal with prosecutors to enter a diversion program (aka rehab) rather than face the charges (and $250,000 fine). The extortion was part of a particularly rough year for Rimes—at the same time, she was battling her father, Wilbur, in court, asserting that he owed her $14 million. Rimes and her father later settled the case, and reconnected for her 2002 wedding to backup dancer Dean Sheremet (a relationship that ended earlier this year). At least Rimes has a lot of material for sad country ballads.
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In August 2009, Louisville Cardinals basketball coach Rick Pitino admitted that he had “consensual sex with and paid for an abortion” for a woman who allegedly attempted to extort him for $10 million, along with two cars and college tuition for her children. Karen Cunagin Sypher and Pitino met at a Louisville café in 2003 and had sex the same night, according to ESPN, and two weeks later, he gave her $3,000 to cover abortion costs. After being indicted for extortion, Sypher also alleged that Pitino had raped her, though prosecutors have recently deemed her “ mentally incompetent” to make such allegations. As of today, Pitino has kept his job and, like David Letterman, is proud of having taken his case public. He said (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1002/p02s10-ussc.html): “When you have a problem, if you tell the truth, the problem becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future."
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Bruce Willis reportedly settled his 2007 extortion case “amicably,” which makes sense given that the demands came from one of Willis’ childhood friends and former employees. His old pal Bruce DiMattia, who was in charge of Willis memorabilia, was “overcome by greed and jealous of his former friend's success,” and demanded $100,000 not to go public with personal information in 2007. The two later settled it out of court and wish each other the best.
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The troubled rapper has had his share of legal accusations and battles, the most public of which was his child pornography trial in 2008 (a possible sex tape of Kelly with a 14-year-old girl surfaced in 2002). The trial led to an extortion plot; key witness Lisa Van Allen is reported to have requested a pay-off to change her evidence on the stand. Private investigator Jack Palladino claims to have met with Val Allen (whom says she had a threesome with Kelly and the teen), and she threatened to have a tell-all book deal in the works. As MTV reported , the prosecution balked at this, stating, “"Is that a crime? To have a book deal?" "Absolutely not, if you believe them," Palladino said. "If you don't believe them ... it was a coded way of getting money from my client [in exchange for not testifying]."
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Magician David Copperfield can make himself disappear, but he did not have the same luck in August of this year with charges from a 22-year-old former Miss Washington USA contestant. The woman claimed that Copperfield assaulted her on his $50 million private island in the Bahamas. She accuses Copperfield of flying her to the island in 2007 after meeting her at a show, threatening her life on the island in addition to incidents of sexual assault. Copperfield called her allegations “extortion for money, plain and simple,” and continues to plead his own innocence.
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Cameron Diaz dealt with an extortion scandal in 2003, when photographer John Rutter claimed to possess “private” modeling photos of the actress before she was famous; he demanded $3.3 million and was later arrested with attempted extortion, perjury, and grand theft. Rutter tried to sell the photos of a 21-year-old Diaz to a European advertising firm, forging her signature on release forms—and landed in jail for it. Diaz was awarded damages, and the provocative photos have been sealed permanently, much to the dismay of adolescent youth everywhere.
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Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo had a particularly bad year in 2008—he suffered a serious knee injury and then was extorted by a transvestite. To recap: Ronaldo dropped his fiancée at her house in Rio de Janeiro and then picked up three prostitutes. They went to a motel, where Ronaldo discovered that the women he picked up were in fact men, who then tried to extort money. One of the prostitutes, known as Andreia Albertine, stole Ronaldo’s car documents and asked for $30,000—when he refused to pay, Albertine went on to accuse the footballer of drug abuse and physical threats. Ronaldo and his fiancée canceled their engagement after the scandal broke, but later married and now live in a Sao Paulo penthouse.
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Even The King was the victim of several extortion plots over the years—he was such a target that his FBI file at the time of his death was 683 pages long. One of the best known plots came from Laurenz Johannes Griessel-Landau, a South African grifter who represented himself as a dermatologist. Elvis hired him in 1959 for skin treatments, but Griessel-Landau apparently made passes at Elvis and his friends, causing Elvis to dismiss his services. This sent the swindler into a tailspin, and he threatened to release compromising photographs and harmful secrets (including a rumored relationship with a 16-year-old girl) about Elvis to the press. Because this all went down while Elvis was in the Army, the military decided not to take the case to court and instead enlisted the FBI. Griessel-Landau received a small sum and was put on a plane to London—it was all handled very quietly, allowing Elvis to continue his pursuit of a film career.
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