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Oprah blackmailer wants $1.5m
07/01/2007 22:41 - (SA)
Carla K Johnson
Chicago - A man allegedly tried to extort $1.5 million (about R11m) from 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 earlier at a party, according to the criminal complaint filed in United States district court.
Bonvillain targeted "Individual A," who was "a public figure and the owner of a Chicago-based company," said the complaint.
The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, citing unnamed sources, reported that Individual A was Oprah.
Asked questions about Oprah
Bonvillain was arrested on December 15 in the parking lot of an Atlanta hotel and released on $20 000 (about R144 000) bail.
He was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Chicago on Monday.
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 had 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 called Bonvillain and learned he had taped 12 hours of those discussions.
In the following few weeks, Bonvillain allegedly told the associate that he wanted to publish a book based on the "shocking" and "newsworthy" tapes and claimed he had received offers of $500 000 about R3.6m) to $3m (about R22m) from tabloids and book publishers.
Bonvillain allegedly said "...there are a lot of people who would want these tapes and those people would not be ... concerned about the truth", according to the complaint.
The second associate, who was secretly in contact with the FBI, allegedly agreed to a $1.5m price, wired Bonvillain $3 000 (about R22 000) in "earnest" money and arranged to meet him in the hotel parking lot. Bonvillain was arrested the next day.
'A big mix-up'
Bonvillain's attorney, Kent Carlson, told the Tribune and Sun-Times he could neither confirm nor deny details in the complaint.
"There is nothing to it," Bonvillain told the paper. "It's nothing. It was a big mix-up."
Phone messages left for Harpo Productions Incorporated and the US attorney's office were not returned on Saturday.
Winfrey was in South Africa on Saturday, where she welcomed parents of the girls chosen for her new leadership academy.
- SAPA
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