Woman says Stamos photos exist

2010-07-15 13:32

Marquette, Michigan - A woman charged with trying to extort $680 000 from John Stamos insisted on Wednesday that she had a photo of the actor snorting cocaine in 2004 in Florida, where he was unwinding during a separation from his wife.

Allison Coss, 24, testified in her own defense in federal court, where she and co-defendant Scott Sippola, 31, are accused of demanding money from Stamos and threatening to sell photos to magazines of him with strippers and cocaine.

Defense attorneys argued that it wasn't a crime to make a business deal, but prosecutors said it was a ruse and the photos didn't exist.

Coss admitted on Wednesday that she lied in e-mails to Stamos to try to get him to pay. But she said a picture of him with cocaine did exist at least a week before the FBI raided a home she shared with Sippola last December.

Police and FBI agents had testified earlier that no pictures were destroyed after the search.

Coss took the stand shortly after the government wrapped up its case on Wednesday morning, a day after Stamos testified that he neither did cocaine nor acted inappropriately when he met Coss in 2004. Jurors could begin deliberating as early as Thursday.

- AP