Oprah Winfrey said extortion target

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TV talk host Oprah Winfrey was the target of an alleged extortion plot involving potentially damaging audio tapes, federal officials in Chicago say. Keifer Bonvillain of Atlanta was charged with illegally taping telephone conversations he had with a Winfrey employee he had met at a party in an effort to extort $1.5 million from the star, the Chicago Sun-Times said Saturday. Bonvillain reportedly asked many questions about Winfrey and her business and then told a second person he had 12 hours of those conversations and demanded the money to destroy the tapes and his notes, the newspaper said. Bonvillain is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing in Chicago on Monday. The criminal complaint does not say Bonvillain ever had direct contact with Winfrey and she is mentioned in the complaint only as "a public figure and the owner of a Chicago-based company."