Friday, May 30, 2014
newsmakers
‘Millionaire’ accused of extortion bid
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
A Tennessee man who appeared on “The Millionaire Matchmaker” is accused of trying to extort $2.5 million from a nuclear-weapons plant in exchange for 1,200 slides that he purportedly claimed would be damaging if released publicly.
According to an affidavit filed in federal court last week, Adam Winters sent an email May 8 to Babcock and Wilcox, the contractors operating the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The email also was sent to the FBI’s Knoxville office and to Vice President Joe Biden, the affidavit said.
The email states that Winters has slides that contain “evidence from testing the bombs, to documentation on how much radiation was used on animals and contamination of the plants,” according to the affidavit.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Winters’ family in 1993 sought money from the government and the news media for the same slides, which were accidentally left in an old storage cabinet sold at auction.
Associated Press