{"id":661160,"date":"2026-05-11T00:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/661160\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T00:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:11:09","slug":"fortress-co-founder-wesley-edens-allegedly-extorted-for-1-billion-by-ex-hookup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/661160\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortress Co-Founder Wesley Edens Allegedly Extorted for $1 Billion By Ex-Hookup"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Wesley<\/p>\n

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Wesley Edens — co-founder of Fortress Investment Group and co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks — was allegedly extorted for over $1 billion.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Edens hooked up with Changli “Sophia” Luo — who founded the One World Initiative Advocacy nonprofit group — back in 2023, and she later threatened to publicize videos and photos of them having sex.<\/p>\n

They claim she kept threatening him for months … even contacting his family and saying she was going to go to his investors.<\/p>\n

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\"Wesley<\/p>\n

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She was indicted last year and charged with blackmail and destruction of records.<\/p>\n

At the time, the indictment didn’t name Edens as the victim. But a spokesperson for Edens told Wall Street Journal<\/a> that the billionaire was “Victim-1.”<\/p>\n

According to the spokesperson … Edens went to the cops over the alleged shakedown because he was worried about his safety, as well as the safety of his loved ones.<\/p>\n

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\"Wesley<\/p>\n

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The spokesperson told WSJ … “Mr. Edens will be making no comment on the case as the indictment speaks for itself with respect to the charges against the defendant.”<\/p>\n

They said Edens is expected to testify at Luo’s trial later this year. She was released on $500K bond and is currently on house arrest.<\/p>\n

Luo’s lawyers want the judge to throw out the charges against her. They’re saying her sexual encounter with Edens was “inappropriate and aggressive” … and she’s just after justice and compensation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wesley Edens — co-founder of Fortress Investment Group and co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks — was allegedly extorted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-661160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}