Hollywood studio mogul Harvey Weinstein believed to be one of the targets of Vivek M. Shah’s alleged extortion plot. Although Weinstein was not named in court docs, multiple media outlets reported Wednesday that he was one of the individuals targeted. According to Shah’s profile on IMDb, the 25-year-old has appeared on TV’s Bones and Outsourced, as a bank hostage in The Dark Knight and had roles in small films including Our Family Wedding and Hotel Hollywood.
NEW YORK – A 25-year-old Indo-American, who worked as a small time actor in California, has been indicted on charges of threatening to kill relatives of several prominent businessmen unless he was paid $ 13 million.
Vivek M. Shah of West Hollywood, California, was indicted by a federal grand jury in West Virginia on charges arising from a multi-million dollar extortion attempt.
Hollywood studio mogul Harvey Weinstein believed to be one of the targets of Vivek M. Shah’s alleged extortion plot. Although Weinstein was not named in court docs, multiple media outlets reported Wednesday that he was one of the individuals targeted.
The indictment alleges that Shah sent a prominent West Virginian businessman a letter threatening to kill his relatives unless $ 13 million was wired to an offshore bank account, US Attorney Booth Goodwin said.
The letter identified several of the recipient’s relatives by name, the indictment says.
According to the indictment, Shah later sent the victim wiring instructions for a bank account in Cyprus, along with a second copy of the original threatening letter.
The criminal complaint reveals Shah sought out handgun training only days before he was arrested. The indictment charges Shah with two counts of interference with commerce by threats and two counts of transmitting threatening communications in interstate commerce.
He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on all counts of the indictment.
Shah was arrested in Chicago about a week ago and was staying at his father’s residence in the suburb of Schaumburg just before his arrest.
An affidavit filed by a US postal inspector Joshua Mehall, who investigated the case, said Shah used prepaid debit cards, telephones, WiFi connections at a Starbucks near his home as well as the US Postal Service to send threatening communications to five wealthy individuals.
West Virginia prosecutors report in a summary of probable cause that in June and July, law enforcement learned of the extortion letters and identified that they had been sent through a UPS service. The payment for the postage was traced back to a PayPal account that was linked to a prepaid debit card purchased slightly more than two miles away from the defendant’s residence.
Law enforcement then tracked financial information to a mailbox rental on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, which traced to the defendant’s residence. When West Hollywood police followed up, Shah is said to have shown a fake California driver’s license in another name.
Shah was arrested Aug. 10 and charged with three counts of making threatening communications. He’s now in custody.
The New York Post also reports that sources have identified the Internet co-founder who was extorted as Eric Lefkofsky of Groupon and that when contacted, Shah’s father says the allegations are “out of character” for his son.
Of these five, four individuals are not named in the affidavit but are identified only as a film studio co-founder residing in Connecticut, most likely Weinstein who co-founded the TWC film studio with his brother, co-founder and chairman of an internet company who lives in Illinois, a Florida-based oil and gas company founder and the son of an oil and gas company founder who lives in Texas. The fifth individual has been identified as entrepreneur Christopher Cline.
The affidavit added that the letters to the five individuals had identical content and each carried a “threat to kill named members of the recipient’s families unless a large sum of money was wired to an offshore account.”
A week before his arrest, Shah had also placed calls from his father’s home in Illinois to a Los Angeles gun range, where Shah was scheduled to begin handgun training after returning to Los Angeles.
Shah’s biography says he was born in Akron, Ohio, spent a decade in India, and then moved back to the U.S. along with his family. His professional acting career is said to have started on the Chicago theatrical stage. Shah also posted images of himself hanging out with stars including Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Sofia Vergara.
Shah, who was described as “happy-go-lucky” by one person who knew him, has had an acting career consisting mostly of bit parts.
Midwest Talent Management had repped Shah up until about a week ago, when the thesp left for Illinois, where he was arrested on Aug. 10. He had lived in West Hollywood.
His commercial agents, Coast to Coast Talent Group and the Osbring Agency, have since dropped the thesp.
“I never looked at him as troubled or off or desperate in any way, shape or form,” Shah’s Coast to Coast agent Elyah Doryon told Variety. “I was stunned to see (the arrest), but nothing surprises me in this day and age.”
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