I got a chance to talk with Mark Ebner, the author of Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood [DOWNLOAD AUDIO OF INTERVIEW HERE] . It’s a true crime story of Darnell Riley, a middle-class kid who served seven years for a double homicide at 15 and then insinuated himself into the Hollywood fast track. Riley befriended Paris Hilton and held Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis at gunpoint. According to Ebner, he also attempted to blackmail Francis.

WS> Mark, thanks for coming on today. Tell us a little something about your qualifications to write this book.
ME< Well sure, I’ve been an investigative journalist for 20 years now, started out with Spy Magazine. I’ve written for Rolling Stone, you know every newspaper or glossy magazine that’s either gone out of business or is about to go out of business I’ve written for them. I’ve developed an affinity for crime stories.

WS> Okay so what will readers of Six Degrees of Paris Hilton get for their money?
ME< Murder, rape, extortion, sex tapes, drugs, and you know we’ll throw in a kidnapping or two. This is one gnarly crime book.

WS> Now how’d you come to write this book?
ME< The way I came about it was, there was a kid who went to jail for that Joe Francis, you know the Girls Gone Wild Impresario. That guy who went to jail, I got onto the story early on I was the first reporter to write about the guy who broke into his house, put a gun to his head, robbed him, marched him up the stairs, pulled his pants down — I’ll keep this clean guys — uh put video tape on him and made him say ‘Hi I’m Joe Francis and I’m from Boys Gone Wild and I like to take it up the you know what’. Okay? And then he tried to extort him for half a million dollars.

WS> Darnell Riley was pretty smart, hunh?
ME< This guy was smart enough to go into Hollywood and use his good looks and charm just like WIll Smith did in the movie Six Degrees of Separation, right? You know, and be able to infiltrate and take down Hollywood in a period of six years.

WS> You went to interview Riley in prison. You managed to get him to open up to you and be pretty candid…
ME< And he goes ‘Ebner, you know what? I like your style.’ He goes, ‘I’m not gonna pull an O.J. and say “if I did it” — I did it! And then some’ and then you know, Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, the book I have out became that ‘then some’.

WS> You say Riley attempted to extort money from Girls Gone Wild mogul Joe Francis?
ME< In those extortion calls, he’s insinuating that he and Joe Francis had a sexual relationship. So that if he ever got caught and they showed those video tapes, which I’ve seen by-the-way, he could say ‘look we were having a relationship, this was all consensual.’ So yeah, I mean he totally calls out Joe Francis, and what better guy to call out, I mean look at the irony. This is the Girls Gone Wild guy who’s made a career out of having drunken, drugged, young women pull up their shirts for the camera. You got to admire the guys entrepreneurial skills but at the same time he spends most of his time in court room(s) fighting sexual harassment (suits).

WS> The book is Six Degrees of Paris Hilton. Mark Ebner, thanks for coming on the show today.
ME< Hey my pleasure and I’ll come back on the show anytime.

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