John Stamos Waiting for Blackmail Trial to End

It's now up to the defense to cast doubt on allegations two Michigan residents tried to blackmail the tube star

By Josh Grossberg Jul 14, 2010 8:57 PMTags
Scott Sippola, Allison Coss, John StamosUS Attorney's Office; AP Photo / Neilson Barnard

We're guessing at this point, John Stamos would rather be off shooting his Glee role.

Instead, the former Full Houser was in the front row today as federal prosecutors wrapped their case in the trial of two Michigan residents accused of trying to extort $680,000 from the star over some allegedly compromising pictures.

Just yesterday, Stamos took the stand and said how he felt "threatened" by 24-year-old Allison Coss and 31-year-old Scott Sippola when they started sending ominous emails in an alleged blackmail plot.

But perhaps the biggest revelation?

FBI investigators told jurors that after conducting a search of Coss and Sippola's house in December, no such unbecoming photos were found, including the purported picture of Stamos in the company of two strippers and bending over a table of cocaine that was at the center of the threat.

That testimony fit snugly into prosecutors' argument that Coss and Sippola never had such an image to begin with, but were just trying to frighten Stamos into paying them off.

Not so, according to defense attorney Sarah Henderson. During her cross-examination of the FBI agents, she suggested that they were overly eager to whip up charges against her clients because a celebrity was involved.

Coss and Sippola have pleaded not guilty to one count each of felony extortion and misusing interstate commerce.

In testimony yesterday, Stamos related how he met Coss, then just 17, at an Orlando nightclub in 2004 after he had separated from wife Rebecca Romijn and invited her up to his hotel room to hang out with several other people. But he added that nothing illegal had taken place and the two were just friends.

The defense strategy has been to try to portray Stamos as somehow preying on a teen girl, even though he testified that she claimed she was in college when they first met. The 46-year-old thesp also rejected Henderson's claims that he and Coss stripped down to their skivvies and got in a hot tub together before having an argument over oral sex.

Henderson will be calling several defense witnesses, among them the defendants themselves.

Coss told the jury that pics of Stamos in an unbecoming light did indeed exist; specifically she said she saw one of him snorting cocaine at the Florida bash. However, not helping her case any, the Michigan native admitted on the stand that she lied in the hopes of getting the celeb to fork over the money.

If all goes smoothly, closing statements could come within the hour and the case could go to the jury by the end of today.

Follow @eonline on Twitter!
________

Get caught up on the juiciest celebrity scandals here.