DENIED Winfrey, Bonvillain (inset)

Keifer Bonvillain, the 36-year-old Georgia man who was nabbed by the FBI late last year for allegedly trying to extort Oprah Winfrey for $1.5 million, won't be facing charges after all. Last week, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case agreed to dismiss the charge, and Bonvillain agreed to pay $3,000 restitution to the FBI, serve 50 hours of community service, and stay out of legal trouble for one year. He had faced up to two years in federal prison.

On Sunday, Bonvillain told Radar that he had been vindicated and that he intends to publish an "explosive" book about Winfrey based on information from illegally recorded telephone conversations he conducted with a former employee of Winfrey's production company, Harpo.

"Basically, it was as if the prosecution wanted out of this mess before it got crazy," Bonvillain said. "My plan right now is to release an e-book within the next week."

It's unclear what will happen to the more than 15-hours' worth of taped phone calls that the FBI seized from Bonvillain when he was arrested, and later during a search of his home. But in the end it doesn't matter: Bonvillain says he has his own copies of the tapes that the FBI never found during its search. While the deal requires Bonvillain to return all of the discovery material that the U.S. attorney turned over to him, including audio and transcripts of the phone calls, it doesn't forbid him from publicizing his own copies of those calls.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Chicago, confirmed the agreement with the would-be author. "The U.S. attorney has entered into a formal agreement with Mr. Bonvillain," he said. "It is not an outright dismissal of the charges, but rather a deferral." Sanborn said the charges would be reinstated if Bonvillain doesn't comply with the agreement.

Bonvillain was arrested in an FBI sting last December as he arrived at an Atlanta hotel to meet Bill Becker, Harpo's general counsel. He was charged with threatening to release the details of his conversations with Todd Davis, a former office manager in the California offices of Harpo Films—unless Winfrey paid him off. Bonvillain insisted that he had merely approached Winfrey to give her a chance to respond to the charges he would make in his book—he refuses to disclose the details but says it contains "very shocking stuff." He says he was then bullied and threatened by Becker into accepting a payment for his silence.

Three weeks ago, Radar published an exclusive account of Bonvillain's negotiations with Becker prior to his arrest, including audio excerpts of their conversations demonstrating that Bonvillain made clear to Becker that he had no intention of extorting Winfrey. At one point in the tapes, Bonvillain asks Becker if the attorney feels that their talks of a pay-off constituted extortion. "Well, I don't feel that way right now," Becker replies. "And there's no reason why I guess I have to feel that way." According to Bonvillain, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case approached Bonvillain's lawyer to propose dismissing the charges on the day Radar published the story.

Becker and Harpo did not respond to requests for comment.

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