Brit who married American billionaire’s daughter and tried to extort £2million from her family by posting nude pictures of her online is jailed for 12 years
- James Casbolt, 38, from St Ives in Cornwall, married Haley Meijer before moving to the US
- Ms Meijer, who is heir to £5.5bn ($8.5bn), is daughter of Meijer supermarket’s CEO
- But ‘extremely dangerous’ Casbolt posted images in bid to ‘destroy’ family
- He has been jailed for 12 years after admitting blackmailing Meijer and harassing two other women
A ‘charming’ British man who married the daughter of a U.S billionaire and tried to blackmail £2m from her family by posting nude photos of her online has been jailed in the UK for 12 years.
James Casbolt, 38, demanded the money in exchange for removing explicit pictures of his estranged wife Haley Meijer – who is the heiress to an £5.5billion ($8.5bn) fortune – from the internet.
He told the family that, if his demands were not met, he could ‘tickle the public interest for years’.
Haley Meijer (left). daughter of American hypermarket tycoon Hank Meijer, had taken the pictures for Casbolt (right) and sent them to him while he was in the army. The pair had married in 2009 after meeting online
As part of his vile campaign of harassment, Casbolt – described in court as an ‘extremely dangerous man’ – also posted ramblings about his wife being a prostitute and even threatened to send suicide bombers to her parents’ home.
The pair had met Ms Meijer in 2009 but Ms Meijer’s father Hank – who is CEO and co-chairman of huge supermarket chain Meijer – never approved of the marriage.
The court heard how, when the couple’s relationship became acrimonious, Casbolt threatened to ‘destroy’ the Meijers.
When Ms Meijer vowed to pursue divorce and threatened that Casbolt would not see his son again, his threats became increasingly dark.
James Casbolt, 38, who married the daughter of an American billionaire, tried to extort £2m from the family by posting explicit photos of her online
He posted her nude pictures – which Ms Meijer had taken for Casbolt while he was in the army – on porn sites, before demanding the money to remove them.
According to Forbes, Mr Meijer and his brother Doug – who is part-owner of the chain – are worth an estimated £5.5billion ($8.5bn), ranking them as 153rd in the list of the world’s richest billionaires.
Casbolt has now been jailed for 12 years after he admitted sending threatening texts and emails to Ms Meijer, as well as two other women who he contacted online.
Passing sentence this afternoon, Judge Christopher Harvey-Clarke told Casbolt that he had a ‘highly intelligent and criminal mind’ and had ‘systematically set out’ to destroy his wife’s reputation.
He said: ‘Your intentions were evil. The way you sought to intimidate and humiliate Haley Meijer shows a deprived and distorted set of values.
‘You were not mad, but you were bad and very dangerous to know to these women who were unfortunate enough to know you.’
He added: ‘You asked your wife for sexually intimate images and videos. She gave them to you because she loved you. You grossly abused her trust. When the relationship broke down, you used the photographs as your ammunition.
‘You systematically set out to destroy her reputation. Thousands of people with gullible minds saw the photos and doubtless believed the horrible lies you wrote.
‘You may have wanted to see your son. But the appalling way you went about it means you are very unlikely to.’
Speaking about the offences committed against other women, he added: ‘Whilst on bail you consisted the offences against Miss Everett and Miss Swallow. This time you used the alias of a mythical serial killer.
He posted ramblings about his wife (pictured left and right) being a prostitute and even threatened to send suicide bombers to her parents’ home, the court heard
The court heard how Ms Meijer (pictured) initially found Casbolt ‘charming’ when they met online. But two years after their marriage in 2011, the relationship began to break down
According to Forbes, Mr Meijer (pictured) and his brother Doug – who is part-owner of the chain – are worth an estimated £5.5billion ($8.5bn), ranking them as 153rd in the list of the world’s richest billionaires
‘You are a dangerous man. You present a significant risk to the public and I am going to pass a lengthy prison sentence.’
Truro Crown Court heard how Ms Meijer initially found Casbolt ‘charming’ when they met online.
But the court heard how, two years after their marriage in 2011, the relationship began to break down.
Prosecutor Philip Lee said: ‘It was then that he told her that he would dedicate the rest of his life to destroying her and threatened to post the explicit photos on the internet.
‘He said to her ‘I will now release porn pictures of you to the world’. He then immediately followed out that threat and posted them on Facebook.
‘He also asserted that Ms Meijer was a prostitute and continued to post sexually explicit photos on the internet. According to Ms Meijer this represented just a fraction of the harassment.’
The court heard how, after moving to Michigan with his new wife, Casbolt had joined the US Military in Texas. Shortly afterwards, Ms Meijer found out she was pregnant with their child.
The court heard that, while in the army, Casbolt asked Ms Meijer to take sexually explicit photos.
After leaving the army in September 2012, the court heard how Casbolt became violent towards her. A month after the abuse began, Ms Meijer filed for divorce.
The court heard how, after their divorce, Ms Meijer lived alone with their child in the US. But the defendant continued to make threats. He claimed he would only stop posting images if she brought their son over to the UK.
He added that, if she didn’t, he could ‘do this for years’.
The court heard how, around the same time, Casbolt posted one of the images under a fake name, along with an advert that offered massage services from Ms Meijer’s property.
In January 2014, Ms Meijer successfully obtained a restraining order, but it did not deter Casbolt in his campaign of harassment.
Mr Lee said: ‘The following month he started mentioning the £50,000 ($75,000) pre-nuptial agreement.
‘He sent Ms Meijer an email saying: ‘Listen babe, just send me a letter, we need to talk. Your dad could be lynched in the street’.’
He then sent another email to Ms Meijer and told her to show it to her parents. The note said: ‘2M. Put in my bank account. I will then stop talking about the Meijer family.
‘If my terms are not met, I can tickle the public interest for years, until the Meijers are so infamous in the world they will not be able to walk down the streets safely.’
In another email sent to Ms Meijer, he said: ‘If you are living with another guy, you just gave him a death sentence.’
The court heard how he also threatened to send suicide bombers to her parents’ house. In May 2014, he told Ms Meijer that he would post pictures of her on a pornographic website.
He also admitted two charges of putting a person in fear of violence by harassment after sending threatening messages to two other women, including Tassie Swallow (pictured left and right)
Mr Lee said: ‘It was uploaded but she complained and it was removed. But not before it got thousands of views.’
Casbolt was later questioned by police and admitted uploading the images. The court heard how, when he was asked why he did it, he said: ‘Because I love my son and they are telling me I will never see him again.
‘I have tried to show them it does not matter how much money they have. I just want to see my son. I don’t care how she feels. I don’t care how her parents feel.’
The court heard Ms Meijer suffered depression from the ordeal and was unable to talk about what had happened through embarrassment. Her relationship also broke down with her father.
The judge said Casbolt, pictured outside Truro Crown Court, was a ‘dangerous man’
Casbolt admitted contacting Ms Meijer several times between October 1, 2013 and July 9, 2014.
He also admitted two charges of putting a person in fear of violence by harassment after sending threatening messages to two other women, Tassie Swallow and Simone Everett.
The court heard how Miss Swallow, 20, a Great Britain junior surfer, received offensive messages from Casbolt in September 2014.
In 2012 she was chosen as an Olympic torchbearer and took over the flame from sailor Ben Ainslie at Land’s End.
Another victim was Simone Everett who he had known since was 14. Miss Everett is a 28-year-old stylist who was recently crowned Bridal Beauty Stylist of the year in the Cornish Brides Awards 2015.
The court heard he bombarded her with 27 messages in just one night in February 2014. One read: ‘My time is up – you are next, you are fortunate.’
In a blog which he kept online, Casbolt claims he was ‘chosen for an intelligence agency mind control and genetic enhancement program before my birth’.
He wrote that he had been trained secretly as a young child to kill people and brainwashed since.
His outlandish claims spoke of a large part of the project focuses on creating espionage agents and assassins who have undergone genetic enhancements and described it as a type of ‘school’ I grew up in.
He wrote: ‘I carried out my first covert assassination for the intelligence community when I was sixteen years old in Brighton.’
According to Casbolt, he later married into a billionaire Illuminati family, because they thought his ‘super soldier skills and abilities would be useful.’
However he claimed he was unable to adapt into such wealthy circles, which resulted in him leaving his wife and trying to extort money from her.
Casbolt guilty to stalking Ms Meijer involving serious alarm or distress, by sending threatening and offensive text messages and e-mails and by posting threatening and offensive messages and images on social websites. He also pleaded guilty to blackmailing her.
He also admitted two charges of putting a person in fear of violence by harassment on September 20. Those offences related to Miss Everett and Miss Swallow.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3177465/Brit-married-billionaire-s-daughter-tried-extort-2million-family-posting-nude-pictures-online.html#ixzz3hETxQfrl
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