YOKO ONO’S DRIVER CHARGED IN EXTORTION PLOT

Yoko Ono’s longtime driver, Koral Karsan, has been charged in a plot to extort two million dollars from the artist, using threats to kill her and her son, reports the New York Times‘ Alan Feuer and Robin Pogrebin. At Karsan’s arraignment yesterday, prosecutors said he had claimed to have people “on standby” ready to kill Ono and Sean Lennon, and that he planned to move to Turkey to write a tell-all book about her life. In a blackmail note, which was read aloud in court, Karsan announced intentions to use “e-commerce capability” to distribute photographs of Ono on the Internet in Iran. The bizarre case has included Karsan’s claim that he had bugged Ono’s Bentley, even though investigators said they had yet to find a recording device in any of her cars.