An Australian investment banker accused of chaining a fake bomb to a girl’s neck in a bizarre extortion attempt was being extradited yesterday from the US to face a slew of charges at home, police said.
New South Wales state police said Australian detectives were flown to the US to assist in the extradition of Paul Douglas Peters, 50, who had been held in a Louisville, Kentucky, jail since his arrest last month. Police declined to release details of his travel arrangements, though TV footage showed Peters getting off a plane at a Los Angeles airport.
Peters is accused of attacking 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver, who was studying at her home in a wealthy Sydney suburb on Aug. 3 when a masked man carrying a baseball bat broke into the house and tethered a bomb-like device to her neck. The man left behind a note demanding money, along with an e-mail address that appeared to refer to a novel about a ruthless businessman in 19th-century Asia.
A police bomb squad spent 10 hours working to remove the device, which was later found to contain no explosives. Pulver was not injured.
Peters, a successful international businessman who travels frequently between the US and Australia, was arrested by the FBI at his ex-wife’s house in a Louisville suburb on Aug. 15. Australian police have said they plan to charge him with a range of offenses, including kidnapping.
It’s not clear what ties Peters has to the Pulvers, though federal court documents say Peters once worked for a company with links to the family.
Madeleine Pulver’s millionaire father, William Pulver, was once the president and chief executive of NetRankings, a pioneer in tracking online exposure and readership for companies advertising on the Internet. He left after the firm was sold to ratings giant Nielsen in 2007. He is now CEO of Appen Butler Hill, a company that provides language and voice-recognition software and services.
New South Wales police have said surveillance footage showed Peters in several locations where they believe he accessed an e-mail account with the address dirkstraun1840@gmail.com — the same address left behind on the note attached to the fake bomb. Dirk Struan is the main character in James Clavell’s 1966 novel Tai-Pan, about a bitter rivalry between powerful traders in Hong Kong after the end of the First Opium War.
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