By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

Nov. 14, 2001

PLEASANTON — An Alameda man accused of trying to extort thousands of dollars from married men caught in affairs he staged with a woman he met online compiled pages of personal information on his alleged targets, records show.

Peter Henry Breuer, 27, lured his alleged victims with a Web site he created that showed racy photos of Lacy Dee Vincent, 20, of Turlock. Breuer wrote that Vincent wanted to be called "Satin" and had a liking for married men, according to court documents. He corresponded via e-mail with more than a dozen men, jotting down such information as wives' names, number of children, occupation and race, according to police reports filed in Alameda County Superior Court. There were notes on a retired Navy officer from Palm Springs, a real estate appraisal company owner in Martinez, a married Castro Valley man and others from Antioch, Walnut Creek and San Francisco.

The data was passed along to Vincent, an unemployed sometime junior college student whom Breuer had met online.

Vincent's lawyers said she was coaxed into the scheme.

"He was the one who did all the work on the Internet," defense attorney Leonard Ulfelder said Tuesday at a bail hearing. "He was the mastermind. He was the person with the idea."

Through e-mail and phone calls, Vincent set up two meetings with men from Pittsburg and Pleasanton at local hotels, police said. While Vincent was with the men, Breuer snapped their photos and took pictures of their cars, both later included in threatening e-mails, records show.

The men said in signed statements that they had sex with Vincent, but she told investigators during a taped interview that the men were aggressive and verbally abusive and that she did not do anything sexual with them.

Days after the encounters, the men received e-mails with a subject line stating "You have been had" and demanding $1,000 to keep the affairs quiet, according to records.

"I know where you work," one e-mail declared. "I know where you live. I know who your wife is and I know about your baby. And I know you would not want anything to ruin what you have right now."

While one man went to police, the other responded with a demand of his own. He demanded to be left alone and threatened to expose Breuer, whose identity he learned from Caller ID.

"I don't think your HR director would appreciate the fact that you are using a company phone for criminal activity," the man wrote in a letter later filed with the court. "This crap may have worked on some other suckers, but not me."

Breuer told police that he was having money troubles, didn't like his $50,000-a-year job at Silicon Graphics in Mountain View and "was looking for excitement," a detective wrote in a report.

Breuer and Vincent were arrested Nov. 6. Breuer remains free on $30,000 bail.

Vincent, arrested at her mother's home, is being held in Santa Rita Jail. On Tuesday, Judge Ronald Hyde lowered her bail to $15,000 from $30,000. They are both due back in court Thursday.