Michigan pair convicted in John Stamos extortion plot

Detroit: A Michigan couple were convicted on Thursday for trying to extort $680,000 from `Full House` and `ER` actor John Stamos. Allison Coss, 24, and Scott Sippola, 31, were convicted on three counts of extortion by a jury in US District Court in Marquette, Michigan. Prosecutors said Coss and Sippola, her boyfriend, had concocted an elaborate plot to extort money from Stamos by threatening to release pictures of him with strippers and cocaine. The FBI searched the couple`s home, cars and computer, but never found any compromising photographs. Stamos, who attended the trial, said in a statement that Coss and Sippola had made "slanderous allegations" against him to divert attention from their own crime. "There was no hot tub, no drugs, no nudity and nothing sexual in nature involved in my friendship with this woman," Stamos added. "They lied about everything from a pregnancy to compromising photos." The pair face a maximum of five years imprisonment and sentencing was scheduled for October 8. Coss, who worked at a northern Michigan night club, met Stamos in Florida in 2004 when she was 17 and on a trip to Disney World. She remained in touch with the actor through email. Stamos contacted the FBI in Nashville in November 2009 after receiving emails from someone claiming to have found incriminating pictures from 2004. Prosecutors said those emails had been sent by Coss and Sippola. Earlier the two had also sent emails to Stamos posing as a woman who claimed to have become pregnant by him, prosecutors said. At one point, Coss sent emails to Stamos saying she had also been the victim of an extortion plot in an attempt to make him believe incriminating pictures existed, prosecutors said. Stamos, who divorced actress Rebecca Romjin in 2005, is best known for his role as Jesse in the 1990s sitcom "Full House" where he played opposite then-child-stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The actor is expected to guest star in the upcoming second season of the Fox TV musical comedy "Glee". Bureau Report