question: (CNN) -- A Michigan man and woman convicted of trying to extort $680,000 from "Glee" actor John Stamos by threatening to sell compromising photos were each sentenced to four years in prison Friday.

U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar in Marquette said the photos never existed, according to a federal prosecutor.

Scott Edward Sippola, 31, and Allison Lenore Coss, 24, could have faced up to nine years in prison for convictions of conspiracy and interstate communications to extort money.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Lochner said a statement from Stamos was read in court. In it, Stamos said he had been slandered and his reputation impugned. Lochner said the judge ascertained that the conspiracy wasn't just a "foolish lark."

In a presentence filing, Sippola admitted his conduct "was awful."

"I sought to exploit my knowledge of the personal weaknesses of a perfect stranger for my own undeserved financial gain," Sippola wrote.

"The case was made by the fact that these defendants made threats to damage his [Stamos'] reputation in order to have him pay them," Assistant U.S. Attorney Maarten Vermaat said after the July verdict in Marquette, Michigan.

According to CNN affiliate WLUC, prosecutors said that Coss and Sippola told Stamos that if he didn't give them the money, they would sell embarrassing pictures of him allegedly using drugs to tabloid publications.

Vermaat said the defendants sent about 40 e-mails to Stamos threatening to sell the photos. FBI agents got involved and started monitoring Stamos' e-mail account and "eventually communicated by cellular telephone with the defendants pretending to be Mr. Stamos' business manager." Sippola and Coss were arrested in December 2009 at an airport, a pre-arranged dropoff spot for the money.
1. Who was extorted?
2. Is he an actor?
3. What shows has he been in?
4. How many people were in the plot?
5. What did they have?
6. What was in the pictures?
7. How many messages did they send to the star?
8. When were they arrested?
9. Did the star face them at trial?
10. What state was the trial held?
11. What agency investigated the crime?
12. Where were the extorters captured?
13. What were they going to do with the pictures?
14. How were they caught?
15. Was the star's image damaged?
16. How many years in jail will they serve?
****
answer: 1. John Stamos
2. yes
3. Glee
4. Two
5. compromising photos
6. him allegedly using drugs
7. about 40
8. December 2009
9. no
10. Michigan
11. FBI
12. airport
13. sell
14. FBI agents got involved and started monitoring Stamos' e-mail account and "eventually communicated by cellular telephone with the defendants pretending to be Mr. Stamos' business manager."
15. yes
16. four

question: I was doing a weekend seminar at the Deerhurst Lodge, north of Toronto. On Friday night a tornado swept through a town north of us called Barrie, killing dozens of people and doing millions of dollars worth of damage. Sunday night, as I was coming home, I stopped the car when I got to Barrie. I got out on the side of the highway and looked around. It was a mess. Everywhere I looked there were smashed houses and cars turned upside down.

That same night Bob Templeton was driving down the same highway. He stopped to look at the disaster just as I had; only his thoughts were different than my own. Bob was the vice-president of Telemedia Communications, which owns a string of radio stations in Ontario and Quebec. He thought there must be something we could do for these people with the radio stations they had.

The following night I was doing another seminar in Toronto. Bob Templeton and Bob Johnson, another vice-president from Telemedia, came in and stood in the back of the room. They shared their conviction that there had to be something they could do for the people in Barrie.

After the seminar we went back to Bob's office. He was now committed to the idea of helping the people who had been caught in the tornado.

The following Friday he called all the executives at Telemedia into his office. At the top of a flip chart he wrote three 3s. He said to his executives, "How would you like to raise 3 million dollars 3 days from now in just 3 hours and give the money to the people in Barrie?" There was nothing but silence in the room.

Finally someone said, "Templeton, you're crazy. There is no way we could do that."

Bob said, "Wait a minute. I didn't ask you if we could or even if we should. I just asked you if you'd like to."

They all said, "Sure we'd like to." He then drew a large 'T' underneath the 333. On one side he wrote, "Why we can't." On the other side he wrote, "How we can."

"I'm going to put a big X on the 'Why we can't' side. We're not going to spend any time on the ideas of why we can't. That's of no value. On the other side we're going to write down every idea that we can come up with on how we can. We're not going to leave the room until we figure it out." There was silence again.

Finally, someone said, "We could do a radio show across Canada."

Bob said, "That's a great idea," and wrote it down. Before he had it written, someone said, "You can't do a radio show across Canada. We don't have radio stations across Canada." That was a pretty valid objection. They only had stations in Ontario and Quebec.

Templeton replied, " _ ." But this was a real strong objection because radio stations are not very compatible . They usually don't work together. They are very cutthroat. They fight each other. To get them to work together would be virtually impossible according to the standard way of thinking.

All of a sudden someone said, "We could get Harvey Kirk and Lloyd Robertson, the biggest names in Canadian broadcasting, to anchor the show." (That would be like getting Tom Brokaw and Sam Donaldson to anchor the show. They are anchors on national TV. They are not going to go on radio.) At that point, it was absolutely amazing how fast and furious the creative ideas began to flow.

That was on a Friday. The following Tuesday they had a radiothon . They had fifty radio stations all across the country that agreed to broadcast it. It didn't matter who got the credit as long as the people in Barrie got the money. Harvey Kirk and Lloyd Robertson anchored the show and they succeeded in raising three million dollars in three hours within three business days!

You see, you can do anything if you put your focus on how to do it rather than on why you can't.
1. Was Bob Templeton driving down the highway during the day?
2. Which way were cars turned?
3. Is that the way cars are supposed to be?
4. What happened to the houses?
5. Which town was this in?
6. Did anyone die?
7. How many people?
8. Was there any monetary damages?
9. How much?
10. What night was the author driving through Barrie?
11. Was he driving home?
12. Where had he just spent his weekend?
13. Where's that located?
14. What was he doing there?
15. What swept through Barrie?
16. When?
17. Who else had been driving down the same highway that night?
18. What did Bob do for a living?
19. For which company?
20. Who was Bob committed to helping?
****
answer:
1. night
2. Upside down.
3. No.
4. They were smashed.
5. Barrie.
6. Yes.
7. Dozens.
8. Yes.
9. Millions
10. Sunday night.
11. Yes
12. The Deerhurst Lodge
13. North of Toronto
14. A weekend seminar
15. A tornado
16. Friday
17. Bob Templeton
18. He was a vice-president.
19. Telemedia Communications
20. People who were caught in the tornado