That chauffeur who is accused of trying to extort $2 million out of Yoko Ono has been charged with first-degree attempted grand larceny (which is a grand sounding charge, if ever I heard one) and has been jailed without bail because the judge hearing the case reckons he might run off if he was allowed out pending trial, most likely to home country Turkey. And immigration officials had requested he be detained anyway, because there are allegations he is in the US illegally.
As previously reported, Koral Karson denies the charges against him, which include allegations he threatened to release recordings of private conversations with, and revealing photos of Ono if she didn't pay him $2 million. It is also alleged Karson said that he had people "on standby to kill" Yoko if she didn't meet his demands.
On the allegations that Karson is an illegal immigrant, his defence attorney, Robert Gottlieb, said yesterday that his client entered the country legally in 1992 on a work visa, that he had "worked non-stop since then to get a green card" in order to secure permanent residence, but that it had transpired that the immigration lawyer he had hired was a fraud, and that that lawyer had subsequently died, meaning there was some confusion as to Karson's current immigration status.
It is not clear how soon the criminal case against Ono's former driver will now come to court.