Two men were charged with plotting to extort more than US$1 million from Tom Cruise for the actor's stolen wedding photographs, federal authorities announced.
David Hans Schmidt, known for brokering deals involving compromising celebrity photos and videos, was charged with sending communications for purposes of extortion, according to a criminal complaint.
Marc Lewis Gittleman, who authorities say helped recover photos from a computer hard drive, was charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.
Federal authorities arrested Schmidt, 47, on Tuesday and Gittleman, 33, on Thursday night, officials said on Friday.
It was not immediately clear whether Schmidt or Gittleman had retained attorneys. Schmidt, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, was released on US$100,000 bail. If convicted, Schmidt faces up to two years in prison and Gittleman up to five years.
A message left with Cruise's publicist was not immediately returned.
The plot began after Gittleman obtained photos of the actor's Italian wedding last year to actress Katie Holmes from the official photographer, a criminal complaint said.
HARD DRIVE
The photographer, identified as Joshua Bobrove, had reportedly taken a damaged computer hard drive containing the wedding photos to Gittleman to employ his services as a data recovery expert.
Gittleman then made copies of photos on the drive and kept them for himself, authorities said. He contacted Schmidt after finding a Web site touting his abilities to broker celebrity photos.
In the last two months, Schmidt had repeated contact with Cruise representatives and threatened to shop the photos around if he did not receive between US$1.25 million and US$1.35 million, officials said. He claimed there were about 7,600 wedding photos, and at one point e-mailed the actor's representatives 13 images as proof he had them.
`BLACK MARKET'
"He said that the client would turn to the black market and find a buyer for the photos," said Peter Brust, a special agent in charge in the FBI's Los Angeles office.
Schmidt was arrested after an undercover FBI agent attended a meeting in West Hollywood between Schmidt and Cruise's representatives. Federal agents were led to Gittleman by a license plate number they discovered on a slip of paper in Schmidt's car.
PREVIOUS SCHEMES
Schmidt has also tried to auction off Paris Hilton's diaries, along with photos of her in various stages of undress and other personal items that had been locked away in a Los Angeles-area storage locker until a few months ago.
Over the years, Schmidt has claimed to have brokered deals to sell a sex video of Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on Saved by the Bell and a video of ice skater Tonya Harding's wedding night, according to published reports. He also claimed to have obtained topless shots of rescued US Army POW Jessica Lynch.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS