LA's 'Sultan of Sleaze' charged in $1m Tom Cruise extortion plot

A notorious Hollywood character known as the "Sultan of Sleaze" for his dealings in celebrity sex tapes and compromising pictures has been charged with another man over an alleged plot to extort more than $1m from Tom Cruise for the actor's stolen wedding photographs.

David Hans Schmidt, 47, known for brokering deals involving compromising celebrity photos and videos, was charged with sending communications for purposes of extortion. The other man, Marc Lewis Gittleman, 33, who authorities say helped to recover photos from a computer hard drive, was charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.

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The plot began after Mr Gittleman obtained photos of the actor's Italian wedding last year to Katie Holmes from the event's official photographer, according to a criminal complaint. The photographer, identified as Joshua Bobrove, reportedly had taken a damaged computer hard drive containing the photos to Mr Gittleman to employ his services as a data-recovery expert.

Mr Gittleman then made copies of photos on the drive and kept them for himself, authorities said. He contacted Mr Schmidt after finding a website touting his abilities to broker celebrity photos. In the last two months, Mr Schmidt had repeated contact with Cruise representatives and threatened to shop the photos around if he did not receive between $1.25m (£920,000) and $1.35m (£990,000), officials said. He claimed there were about 7,600 wedding photos in total, and at one point emailed the actor's representatives 13 images as proof he had them. "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.

According to the website smokinggun.com, Cruise's representatives immediately contacted the FBI and US Attorney-General's office. Mr Schmidt was arrested on Thursday night after an undercover FBI agent attended a meeting in West Hollywood between Mr Schmidt and Cruise's representatives. Federal agents were led to Mr Gittleman by a licence number discovered on a slip of paper in Mr Schmidt's car.

Wedding photos are not the usual inventory that Mr Schmidt peddles. He also has tried to auction off Paris Hilton's diaries, along with photos of her in various states of undress and other personal items that had been kept in a Los Angeles-area storage locker until a few months ago.

Over the years, he has claimed to have brokered deals to sell a sex video of Dustin Diamond, who played Screech in Saved By the Bell, and a video of skater Tonya Harding's wedding night, according to reports. He also claimed to have topless shots of rescued US PoW Jessica Lynch.

Mr Schmidt, who lives in Phoenix, was released on $100,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison and Mr Gittleman up to five years.

Cruise is currently in Germany filming the Second World War movie Valkyrie. His attorney, Bert Fields, told the Los Angeles Times that his client "had not been contacted directly in the alleged extortion". The paper quoted Mr Fields as saying: "This man contacted us with all these photos and asked for a huge sum of money. We turned it over to the FBI and did whatever they told us to do."