Yoko Ono Target in $2M Extortion Plot

A chauffeur for Yoko Ono was arrested yesterday after police said he taped her private conversations and threatened to circulate them unless she paid him $2 million.Detectives arrested Koral Karsan, 50, at his home in Amityville, N.Y., after Ms. Ono, the widow of John Lennon of the Beatles, reported him to police. Police said Mr. Karsan, who worked for Ms. Ono for seven years, threatened to circulate embarrassing photos of her and spoke of killing her and her son, Sean Lennon.Last night, Mr. Karsan was charged with first-degree attempted grand larceny. Outside the 20th Precinct on Manhattan's Upper West Side where he was taken for questioning, he told reporters he was innocent.But police said the Turkish-born driver dropped off an extortion note at Ms. Ono's home at the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West and West 72nd Street on December 8, the 26th anniversary of Lennon's killing. In 1980, Lennon was returning home from a recording studio when Mark David Chapman shot him four times with a .38-caliber revolver. Ms. Ono was with him at the time.In the rambling letter, which was accompanied by a photograph of Ms. Ono in her pajamas, he wrote that he secretly had made audiotapes of her and demanded money in exchange for their safe return. Police said he spoke of killing her, her son, and himself during a later conversation with one of her associates, which was recorded by investigators, the Associated Press reported.Last night, staff at the Dakota declined to comment, saying they had been instructed not to comment on Mr. Karsan's arrest. A publicist for Ms. Ono did not immediately return messages.However, at the parking garage adjacent to the Dakota, an attendant, Juan Ferrara, 55, said Ms. Ono informed staff there last week that Mr. Karsan was no longer working for her and should not be allowed to park there. According to her associates, Ms. Ono leases several cars, including a midnight blue Bentley, which Mr. Karsan often drove.Reached on the telephone last night, a former assistant for the family who said he knew Mr. Karsan expressed surprise at his arrest. "He always seemed like a nice guy," Dane Worthington, who lived at the Dakota with the Lennon family for 17 years, said. "I feel very bad. I know people get greedy."Mr. Worthington, who called his former employer a "sweetheart," noted that her generosity has made it easy for others to take advantage of her. In 2002, Ms. Ono settled a 20-year legal battle with former employee Frederic Seaman, whom she accused of taking personal diaries and family photographs from the Lennon apartment. The ex-employee, who was Lennon's personal assistant, ultimately apologized in court for taking the memorabilia, which he subsequently used in writing a book published in the early 1990s that detailed the day-to-day life of the former Beatle."When people like Yoko are very generous with someone who is working for them, the more generous they are, the more people want," Mr. Worthington said.