Stories related to: extortion

Soccer virtuoso Ronaldo was questioned by police in Rio de Janeiro yesterday after an altercation in a motel with transvestite prostitutes, Reuters reports. The star of AC Milan and the Brazilian national team took three call girls to the motel, only to discover that they were men in drag, according to cops. Ronaldo then offered them $600 each to close the affair, but one of them demanded $30,000 to keep the story from the media. More »

Just a week after actor Rob Lowe sued his former nanny over an alleged extortion attempt, she slapped back with a sex harassment lawsuit against him, reports E! Online. The 24-year-old claims in court papers that she was sexually assaulted, harassed, and beaten by Lowe and his wife during the seven years she worked for them. She told the Today show that she was afraid to leave. More »

Rob Lowe took to the web and courts yesterday to defend himself against a $1.5 million blackmail scheme by a former employee who claims he repeatedly hit on her. The actor, whose career was derailed by a sex scandal in the '80s, went public on the ex-nanny's charge and is suing her in Los Angeles Supreme Court for breach of confidentiality, the New York Post reports. More »

House Minority Leader John Boehner is pressuring Rep. Rick Renzi, indicted yesterday for extortion, money laundering, and fraud in connection with an Arizona land deal, to step down, urging his fellow Republican "to seriously consider whether he can continue to effectively represent his constituents under these circumstances.” Boehner plans to meet with Renzi, the Chicago Tribune reports. More »

Rep. Rick Renzi has racked up a 35-count indictment, including federal charges of conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud, insurance fraud, and money laundering, CNN reports. The Arizona Republican and two ex-business partners worked to sell land that buyers could then trade for federally-owned property, the AP reports; the sale brought one of Renzi’s co-conspirators $4.5 million. More »

Foreign extortionists have managed to hack into US power grids and shut them down, PC World reports, citing a CIA analyst speaking at a security conference this week. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks, but all involved intrusions through the Internet," the analyst said. More »

Philly police have arrested a 15-year-old in the case of a gentle brown dog whose disappearance led to a cruel chain of events for her owner. The youth and others called up the distraught owner after Edna's disappearance, demanded a ransom, then made a dog yelp in pain as he listened, the Philadelphia Daily News reports. Hours later, they called back to say they had killed Edna, whose fate remains unknown. More »

Federal agents are looking into bomb threats phoned in to Wal-Marts and supermarkets across the country, the AP reports. An unidentified caller, believed to be in Portugal, demands that employees wire money overseas or he'll set off a bomb. A Maine supermarket was the target yesterday, bringing the total to at least 15 stores in 11 states. More »

The reigning Miss New Jersey says an uncongenial blackmailer is trying to muscle her out of her tiara with untoward photos, the Star Ledger reports. Amy Polumbo, 22, received as many as 12 pictures in the mail last month with a letter demanding she surrender her title to the runner-up. The photos were apparently lifted from a private Facebook page. More »

Police in Spain have arrested two people in an extortion plot connected to the disappearance of British tot Madeleine McCann. The pair, one of them an Italian man wanted in France for child abuse, were arrested near Gibraltar after trying to blackmail the McCann family, the Guardian reports. The four-year-old was abducted 56 days ago on a family vacation in Portugal.  More »