TomKat 'extortion' pair face charges
Saturday, 28 Jul 2007 19:44
The couple were married on November 18th last year
Two men have been charged with attempting to extort over $1 million (£493,000) from Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
David Hans Schmidt, 47, and Marc Lewis Gittleman, 33, could face time in prison if they are found guilty of demanding money from the A-list pair in return for allegedly illegally obtained images of their wedding.
According to reports, the pair stole thousands of pictures from the TomKat wedding taken by the official photographer.
They allegedly spent several months making demands on representatives of Mr Cruise before being tracked down by police.
Mr Gittleman, who the criminal complaint claims stole the images from the damaged hard drive of the official photographer, is alleged to have enlisted the services of Mr Schmidt to help him gain money for them.
Mr Schmidt has a reputation for previous attempts at procuring money from celebrities. Previously reported cases linked to him include footage of skater Tonya Harding's wedding night and various images of recently-jailed celeb Paris Hilton in a state of undress.
Cruise is not directly engaging in the court proceedings, which are being looked after by his lawyers. Instead the star is working hard on his latest film, Valkyrie, which is stirring up enough controversy to keep him in the headlines by itself.
The film tells the true story of an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, in which Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg – a key figure in the 1944 conspiracy.