Australian bomb hoax suspect charged with kidnapping girl and extortion

AN INVESTMENT banker accused of chaining a fake bomb to a teenage girl’s neck to extort money from her rich parents was charged yesterday after being extradited from the United States.

Australian Paul Douglas Peters, 50, arrived in Sydney early yesterday after being flown from jail in Louisville, Kentucky where he had been held since being arrested in August.

New South Wales officers took him to a police station and charged him with kidnapping, aggravated breaking and entering, and demanding money with menaces.

Peters is accused of attacking 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver, who was studying at her home in a wealthy Sydney suburb on 3 August when a masked man carrying a baseball bat broke in and tethered what he said was a bomb to her neck. He left behind a note demanding money, along with an e-mail address signed Dirk Struan, the name of the hero of James Clavell’s 1966 novel Tai-Pan, about a ruthless Scottish businessman in 19th-century Asia.

A police bomb squad spent ten hours working to remove the device, which was later found to contain no explosives. Pulver was uninjured.

Peters, who frequently travels between the US and Australia, was arrested by the FBI at his former wife’s house in a Louisville suburb on 15 August. He did not appear during a brief hearing yesterday at western Sydney’s Parramatta bail court. He has not applied for bail or entered a plea. The judge ordered him to appear in court for another hearing on 17 November.

If convicted of all charges, he could face up to 49 years in prison. Peters’ lawyers declined to comment outside court.

“I have great admiration for Madeleine Pulver and her family for the way they have dealt with this matter and what has been obviously a very traumatic time of their lives,” police detective superintendent Luke Moore said.

It’s not clear what ties if any Peters has to the Pulvers, though federal court documents say Peters once worked for a company with links to the family. The Pulvers have repeatedly said that they don’t know Peters, and that they have no idea why Madeleine was targeted.

Madeleine Pulver’s millionaire father, William, was once the president and CEO of NetRankings, a pioneer in tracking online exposure and readership for companies advertising on the internet. He left after the firm was sold to ratings giant Nielsen in 2007. He is now CEO of Appen Butler Hill, a company that provides language and voice-recognition software and services.