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'Porn man' targeted Cruise
27/07/2007 07:29 - (SA)
Los Angeles - The FBI has arrested a man who tried to blackmail Tom Cruise for "seven figures" with stolen pictures of his Italian wedding to Katie Holmes, a lawyer for Hollywood's highest paid megastar said.
David Hans Schmidt, 47, was in a Los Angeles jail on Thursday after his arrest on Tuesday and court appearance on Wednesday, Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Laura Eimiller told AFP.
She refused to provide details of the case, saying only that Schmidt was "expected to post bail".
But Cruise's lawyer Bertram Fields said Schmidt had approached the actor's representatives trying to sell them "thousands of pictures" from the couple's wedding for "seven figures", meaning at least one million dollars.
The lawyer said Cruise "is not personally involved in this, as he is in Germany" shooting Valkyrie, in which he stars as a German officer who tries to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
According to The Smoking Gun, the website that broke the story, Schmidt is known as the "Sultan of Sleaze" for his Arizona-based business dealing in celebrity sex tapes and nude photos.
Cruise and Holmes were married on November 18, 2006 in a medieval castle in Bracciano, near Rome. Photos of the wedding were sold exclusively to three celebrity magazines.
- AFP
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South Africa
