Helg Sgarbi Imprisoned over Susanne Klatten Pictures and Video Blackmail

The story of Susanne Klatten and Helg Sgarbi is a tangled one. She is Germany's richest woman, with a family history involved with the Nazi party, and he is a businessman who turned into a blackmailing gigolo.

Sgarbi has been convicted of three counts of extortion and fraud and sentenced to six years in prison. He took advantage of Klatten (who is the heir to a large portion of German automakers BMW), and three additional women. After he tried to blackmail Klatten into bringing about $8,000,000 to a hotel where the two used to make love, according to a Times Online article, he upped his asking price, and asked for $61,000,000 or code word "seven times seven-up".

At that point, Klatten went to the police, stating that Helg Sgarbi was threatening to release a video and photos of the scandalous affair, and that millions of euros were at stake. Since then, Sgarbi has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Now that the affair between Sgarbi and Klatten has been revealed to her husband and the public, many are comparing Sgarbi to other famous criminals. The rich and famous are targeted because of their wealth, and Klatten is certainly not the first victim.

Charles' Lindbergh's son was kidnapped and used for bribery in 1932, and eventually his son was murdered because the blackmail amount was never met. Blackmailers use family members against each other in order to receive the money they want, for Lindbergh it was his son, and for Klatten, her blackmailer threatened to show photos to her husband and children.

The case of Patricia Hearst is strikingly similar to the current case of Susanne Klatten. She was also an heir, but her riches were due to her father's newspaper business- William Randolph Hearst. Patricia was forced into doing things she was unwilling to - such as a bank robbery with the SLA, and forced sex. She is similar to Klatten in that they were both forced to deal with dirty money, and were told they could not go to the police. Fortunately, both victims did eventually go to the authorities, and some justice was served.

More recently, Michael Jordan sued an ex-girlfriend for extortion and blackmail. The accused woman allegedly asked Jordan for $5,000,000 to stay quiet about an affair she and Jordan apparently had. Jordan denied all claims and took her to court, but the case was thrown out in 2003, according to an ESPN news article.

Sources:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5870607.ece by Roger Boyes, Berlin

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1983582, Associated Press