Sgarbi tried to extort €43m from Susanne Klatten. Photograph: Miguel Villagran/Getty Images
A Swiss playboy who seduced and attempted to blackmail Germany's richest woman was found guilty today of extortion.
In a case that has become known as "the gigolo versus the billionaire", Helg Sgarbi was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to trying to extort millions of euros from several wealthy women.
In particular, Sgarbi was accused of filming a sexual encounter between himself and Susanne Klatten, the heir of BMW and the 55th richest person in the world, and using the material to try to extort €49m (£43m) from her.
Sgarbi allegedly threatened to send the compromising footage, shot in a Holiday Inn, to the board of BMW and her husband if she did not give him the money. In a letter he wrote to her: "While your risk is very high, my risks are irrelevant."
Despite the humiliation she was forced to endure, Klatten, 46, whose reputation is that of a serious businesswoman who keeps a low profile, went straight to the police, who arrested Sgarbi at a motorway service station in 2007.
Police investigators described Sgarbi as a smooth operator who knew exactly how to win the trust of the women he seduced. He told them he was a "special Swiss representative in crisis zones", which enabled him to flit between the women at short notice and with very little explanation.
One woman bought wedding rings after Sgarbi proposed marriage, while another took out a high-interest, multimillion-euro loan on his behalf.
But Klatten, a member of the Quandt clan who is worth £9.25bn according to the Forbes rich list, was allegedly his biggest conquest.
They met at an exclusive health resort in Innsbruck in July 2007, allegedly beginning an affair in the south of France the following month, and later meeting in a Holiday Inn in Munich for an encounter which either Sgarbi or an accomplice is believed to have filmed.
In September, investigators claim, Klatten fell for his story that he had injured a girl in a car crash in Florida and urgently needed €7m to pay off her family, which he said he would pay back.
Klatten later told police how she handed over the money – a cardboard box containing 14,000 €500 bank notes – in the garage of the Holiday Inn.
Sgarbi then allegedly tried to persuade the mother-of-three to leave her husband for him, suggesting that she should put €290m into a trust fund to finance their life together.
After Klatten ended the relationship, Sgarbi allegedly demanded that she pay him €49m or he would release the compromising film footage.
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