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Oprah reportedly blackmailed with telephone tapes

A man allegedly tried to extort US$1.5 million from US talkshow queen Oprah Winfrey by threatening to release taped telephone conversations that he claimed would hurt her reputation, according to a federal complaint.

Keifer Bonvillain, 36, allegedly demanded that a Winfrey representative pay him the money in exchange for 12 hours of recorded telephone conversations he'd had with a Winfrey employee he met two years, according to the criminal complaint filed in US District Court.

Bonvillain targeted "Individual A," who was "a public figure and the owner of a Chicago-based company," the complaint said.

The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Individual A was Winfrey.

Bonvillain was arrested on Dec. 15 in Atlanta and released on US$20,000 bond.

He was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Chicago today.

According to the complaint, Bonvillain asked a California-based Winfrey employee questions about Winfrey and her business.

In mid-October he allegedly sent Winfrey an e-mail, telling her an employee said awful things about her.

In mid-November, Bonvillain allegedly sent a letter, saying he had tapes of the conversations. In response, another Winfrey associate telephoned Bonvillain and was informed that he had taped 12 hours of those discussions.

Over the next few weeks, Bonvillain allegedly told the associate that he wanted to publish a book based on the "shocking" and "newsworthy" tapes.

He also claimed he had received offers of US$500,000 to US$3 million from tabloids and book publishers.

The complaint said that Bonvillain had said "there are a lot of people who would want these tapes and those people would not be ... `concerned about the truth.'"

The second associate, who was secretly in contact with the FBI, allegedly agreed to a US$1.5 million price, wired Bonvillain US$3,000 and arranged to meet him in the hotel parking lot. He was arrested the next day.
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