Adam Winters who appeared in an episode of Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker, has been arrested for purportedly extorting $5 million from a nuclear facility.
In a February episode of Millionaire Matchmaker, Winters was described as a millionaire CEO from Beverly Hills. He is a Tennessee native who relocated to Los Angeles after establishing a shipping company. According to reports, the 25-year-old CEO is now broke and cannot even afford to pay for a lawyer.
Winters was arrested on Friday for attempting to extort money by threatening to expose documents that he claimed contain negligent procedures at a nuclear facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Based on the complaint, Winters went after the company that operates the Y-12 National Security Complex, which is in charge of manufacturing and maintaining parts for nuclear weapons.
Damn… #MillionaireMatchmaker bachelor Adam Winters isn’t a millionaire after all! http://t.co/YLLiuoWOp9
— Radar Online (@radar_online) May 29, 2014
In a May 8 email addressed to the company, Winters allegedly wrote that he possessed more 1,200 slides that consist of “documentation on how much radiation was used on animals and contamination of plants.” Winters ended the email by saying “You have 48 hours to respond before they go to auction. Contact info is below.”
Upon learning of the email, DOE agents went undercover to investigate the issue. One of the agents spoke to Winters on the phone and Winters talked about a former lawsuit wherein residents claimed that pollution from Oak Ridge was damaging their properties.
On May 20, Winters met an undercover agent and showed him some of the slides. Winters said that he did not know how much they were worth. “It ain’t worth leaking them out. It’s not worth the headache. I would rather give them to you and be done with it,” he said. Afterwards, he asked for $5 million which he later reduced to $2.5 million after the undercover agent told him his original asking price was “not feasible.” He then gave his bank information to the agent.
Winters is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on June 6.
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