It would appear as though much like oft circulated videos of R. Budd Dwyer blowing his brains out or Crispin Glover nearly decapitating David Letterman, the sex romp between R. Kelly and Gary Sheffield’s wife DeLeon, has been something of an underground sensation. From the NY Post’s Dan Mangan.

Gary Sheffield’s wife was the target of several extortion bids ” including one for an “exorbitant” amount of money ” over a raunchy sex tape featuring her and R&B star R. Kelly, the Yankee slugger’s business manager said yesterday.

“You were aware that there were prior extortion attempts regarding the tape?” Michael Petro, the lawyer for the man accused of the latest shakedown bid, asked business manager Rufus Williams.

“That’s correct,” Williams replied.

Petro then asked the business manager if one attempt involved “a demand for an exorbitant amount of money” that was made to Sheffield’s wife, gospel singer DeLeon Richards-Sheffield.

Williams confirmed there was such a demand.

Derrick Mosley, a Chicago community activist, is being tried on charges of trying to extort $20,000 from Williams in November 2004 in exchange for destroying his copy of the tape.

That tape, made a decade ago, shows Kelly having sex with DeLeon, a teenager he was then dating.

Although bootleg copies had circulated in recent years, it was not widely known that the woman on them was Sheffield’s wife.

In the conversations, Mosley said he was repulsed by the video’s contents and believed Richards needed morals counseling ” from him ” to repent her deeds.

By the way, I would like it acknowledged that I have under no duress whatsoever, intentionally used the phrase “sex romp”.