PHOENIX, AZ — It’s hard to feel too sorry for a blackmailer and extortionist, even when one of his targets is a rich and famous Scientologist. In the specific case of the so-called “Sultan of Sleaze,” it’s hard to feel too sorry for David Hans Schimidt, the man who threatened to circulate more than 700 stolen wedding photos of actor Tom Cruise and his beautiful young actress wife, Katie Holmes. Even his death doesn’t elicit much pity.Schmidt is most famous for admitting that he demanded more than 1 million dollars from Cruise. Now he’s famous for killing himself.
Arrested in July for trying to extort money from the newlyweds, Schmidt had been sentenced to house arrest and fitted with a “tracker” that allowed police to monitor his movements. By the time that the authorities noticed that they hadn’t heard from him in “some time,” according to Lt. Anthony Lopez, and there were no movements to monitor — it was too late.
His 47-year-old body was found in his Phoenix, AZ townhouse at about 3:00pm last Friday.
Schmidt had been expected to formally enter a guilty plea during his October 11th Los Angeles-area federal hearing. His attorney, Nancy Kardon, says that her now ex-client “was optimistic that we would do what was necessary to get him probation,” adding that, “I think he really felt like we had a shot.”
As precious as the Cruise/Holmes Italian wedding photos apparently were, they were not the be-all and end-all of Schmidt’s ethically questionable but ultimately profitable business ventures. Nude celebrity photos and sex tapes were his specialty, and he had been attempting to auction an assortment of naughty Paris Hilton photos, personal items, and diaries – all procured during the socialite’s much ballyhooed unpaid Los Angeles storage locker contents fiasco.
Schmidt’s photo muck raking career extends back further than the forgetful Hilton, however. His foot stepped through the adult industry door during the presidency of Bill Clinton, when he helped broker a deal between alleged ex-mistress Gennifer Flowers and Playboy Magazine and kept moving with sensational content including shamed Olympic figure-skater Tonya Harding’s wedding night sex.
Perhaps amusingly, although Schmidt was more than happy to bring additional potential Clinton ex-mistress Paula Jones, 1980s pop sensation Tiffany, infamous professional blowjob queen Divine Brown, supposed O.J. Simpson sex footage, and nude photos of rescued U.S. Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch to the media’s attention, he insisted that “All snuff film producers and agents will be reported to federal authorities.”
The Arizona Republic reports that Schmidt’s twin brother, Doug, contends that the death was a suicide by hanging. Police are said to agree that the death was self-inflicted.
New York Daily News scandal columnist George Rush writes that Schmidt, who was facing as many as two years in prison, had been feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of jail time and had confessed to Rush that he had unsuccessfully attempted to hang himself in his shower by a belt recently.
Schmidt’s website biography tells of a man who loved to chase scandal. Alas for Schmidt, he does not appear to have loved the less pleasant fallout that can result from scandal.
“I was greatly saddened by his loss,” attorney Kardon says, perhaps speaking for a small percentage of people, “and I found him to be a very kind man.”
