Royal blackmailers jailed in UK

LONDON, England (AP) -- Two men were convicted Friday in the first plot to blackmail a member of Britain's royal family in more than a century, and sentenced to five years in prison.

Ian Strachan and Sean McGuigan were found guilty in London's Central Criminal Court of carrying out a blackmail plot that featured scandalous allegations involving sex, drugs and royalty.

But the case's most intriguing detail -- the identity of the blackmail target -- remains a secret. A judge's order bans identifying him or any witnesses in the case.

Strachan, 31, and McGuigan, 41, claimed the royal had sex with an aide at a party. The royal said the accusations were false.

In a statement read during the three-week trial, the royal said he was aware of comments allegedly made in a video by one of his aides but that they were untrue.

"This offense has been described as one of the ugliest and most vicious crimes in the calendar of criminal offenses and was described in this court as a dirty, filthy and hideous crime," Judge Jeremy Cooke said during the sentencing.

The two men were arrested September 11 in a police sting operation at a London hotel. Both had said they were innocent.

Prosecutor Mark Ellison said they had demanded £50,000 ($99,000) from a member of the royal family, identified only as "Witness A," for tapes in which one of his employees made lurid claims about him.

In the recording, the employee, "Witness D," said "A" had performed a sex act on him at a party, egged on by a stripper. He also suggested that "A" had taken drugs.

"A person in `A's' position, with a reputation and business interests, is particularly susceptible to the publication of scurrilous and damaging material whether it is true or false," the judge said.

Scotland Yard counterterrorism officers were called in to investigate the case, the first blackmail plot to target one of Britain's royals since Edward VII's son, the Duke of Clarence, paid £200 for a series of love letters to a prostitute in 1891.

Ellison described Strachan as a fantasist who liked to claim he was a friend of royals and lived a champagne lifestyle.

He filmed "D" on McGuigan's mobile phone, then tried to hawk the material to newspapers, before demanding money through an intermediary of "A."

McGuigan, a recovering alcoholic, contacted representatives of "A" in July and was present as the tapes were played to an undercover officer posing as a royal aide, in a meeting shortly before the men were arrested. E-mail to a friend