Keifer Bonvillain is asking for $180 million in restitution in a lawsuit that he filed on Tuesday, October 21 against Oprah Winfrey, her lawyer and the FBI.

Bonvillain claims that Oprah gave ‘false statements’ that led to his arrest in December 2006.  Allegedly, Bonvillain recorded telephone conversations of an employee of Oprah’s production company and then told an associate of the company that he planned to publish a book based on the recordings.  He claimed that he had offers that ranged from $500,000 to $3 million from publishers.

Bonvillain was arrested for extortion after agreeing to accept $1.5 million to turn the recordings over to one of Oprah’s associates.

The charges against Bonvillain were dismissed in 2007, but Bonvillain was still required to complete 50 hours of community service, take a drug test and pay $3000 in restitution.

Bonvillain stated, “There was substantial damage done to my name and reputation on a world level.  The extent of my damages is vast.”

Harpo Productions lawyer, Chip Babcock said, “And we know that this whole episode started when the plaintiff wiretapped a Harpo employee in California.  We advised (Bonvillain) that we believe that wiretapping was illegal, and this case will give us an opportunity to determine whether we were right about that.”

$180 million….This guy must be crazy!  I don’t think there is anyone out there who’s name and reputation is worth $180 million.  What do you think?

There is a rumor going around that Oprah Winfrey was found dead in her Chicago home today.  However, It is unclear as to whether or not this is true.  One report on digg.com says,

Oprah Winfrey, age 54, was found dead in her home residing in Chicago, Illinois at 8:21 AM on September 20, 2008.  She appeared to have a bloody area around her eye, a bullet wound in her stomach and some cuts and bruises up and down her body.  They suspect she was beaten in the middle of the night, and shot in the side with a silence handgun.  According to the FBI, she was killed anywhere around 1:00-2:00 A.M. this morning.

‘I didn’t hear a thing, I was up until 4 last night just watching T.V. and reading some books, nothing suspicious was heard or seen, I even went outside for some ‘cigs’ a couple of times and saw nothing’ -Markus Julane, Oprah’s close neighbor.

Although many people are saying that they have seen the story confirmed on CNN and various other local news stations, I have not been able to find any credible sources confirming this news.  So, I am going to have to say that I am 99% sure that this story is false.  Oprah is as big as the President of the United States and her death would be breaking news on every station world wide.  Oprah is just the latest victim in an awful string of Internet death hoax.

Magician David Blaine set a new world record today on The Oprah Winfrey Show for holding his breath under water for 17 minutes and 4 seconds. The previous record of 16 minutes 32 seconds was set earlier this year in Switzerland by Peter Colat.

Here is one part of the diary kept by David Blaine as he prepared himself for this life changing moment.

For the stunt, Blaine wearing a clad in a silver wet suit, entered an acrylic sphere filled with 1,800 gallons of water and spent the first 23 minutes inhaling pure oxygen, packing his lungs with extra oxygen just before the breathing tubes were removed.Just moments after setting the record, 35 year old Blaine said that this was “a lifelong dream,” of his.  “I can’t believe that I did that.”

“I actually started to doubt I was going to make it because I’d never done it with such a high heart rate,” he added. His aides said during the event that his heart rate should have dropped far lower than it did.

 
In May 2006, as a finale to a week spent in an aquarium with an oxygen mask at New York’s Lincoln Center, Blaine tried to set a new breath-holding record. Without breathing pure oxygen beforehand, he tried to break the existing record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds for an attempt of that type.

But he had to be rescued shortly after 7 minutes when he was unconscious and having convulsions.

Nearly two years after his infamous couch jumping incident, Tom Cruise returns to The Oprah Winfrey Show. (Note to Oprah: bolt down your furniture.)

It will be a two-part show, one airing on May 2 and the other on May 5. The two-part taping will coincide with the 25th anniversary of Cruise’s first break-out movie performance in Risky Business.

The first part will be Oprah’s interview with Cruise at his home in Telluride, Colo. which will cover his “family, his life and the future,” Harpo said.

The second part will be taped in the studio were video messages from Cruise’s friends and colleagues honoring his work in the movie industry, will be shown.

One media mogul of a woman slapped with two separate lawsuits all just this week. One was filed by an audience member of the Oprah Winfrey Show who was injured when the excited audience members stampeded into the auditorium to get their choice seats during a taping. The second was filed by a Boston mother who claims that she fed Harpo Studios the idea of Oprah’s new television show, Oprah’s Big Give, and has yet to get credit or compensation.

The first suit by the audience member was filed in Chicago’s Cook’s County Circuit Court (I dare you to say that 5x fast) by Orit Greenberg who is seeking at least $50,000 in medical fees and other damages because she says she has suffered “severe and permanent injuries.”

I’m saying only $50k for permanent and severe injuries?! Come’on girl–you can dream bigger than that! If I had permanent injuries cuz they couldn’t do some crowd control…hmmmm…I’m thinking at leat a mil, no?

The suit blames Harpo for the incident, saying the company failed to exercise adequate crowd control measures and was careless to allow energetic women to battle it out out for the perfect seats.

As for the second suit, filed by Darlene Tracy, who claims that she pitched a reality show back in February of 2005, called The Philanthropist, to Ellen Rakieten and Jennifer Thornton (the executive producer and a producer of Winfrey’s daytime talk show). The idea? Contestants would be judged on their ability to help those less fortunate.

So, about a year & a half later, in November 2006, Winfrey announced her plans for a show with a similar concept—way too similar for Tracy’s liking! Tracy filed a complaint in Boston’s U.S. District Court to prevent the Big Give from airing, though a judge quickly dismissed the filing after Winfrey’s lawyers argued that Massachusetts wasn’t the place to embark on the legal battle. Recently, Tracy filed an appeal, which includes documentation of her correspondence with the Oprah Winfrey Show producers.

For the first case, a Harpo rep told E! News on Friday that the company does not comment on pending litigation.

But for the second, a Harpo rep went on to say that Winfrey’s team was “confident that the Court of Appeals will agree that Tracy has no claim.”

Big money usually wins, so whether these chicks are right or wrong, I’m betting it’ll likely go in O’s favor–at least the 2nd lawsuit for sure seems unlikely to get a win…