Actor Crowe stars in real life courtroom drama

Actor Russell Crowe is set to star in an Australian court as the real life victim of an alleged extortion plot.

Video footage allegedly showing Crowe in a street brawl will be key evidence in the trial of three men charged with trying to blackmail the Oscar-winning Gladiator star.

The Australian may also be called to give evidence in the trial that is scheduled to start on Monday and last two weeks, a spokesman for the New South Wales state public prosecutor’s office said today.

The case centres on a nightclub surveillance video that reportedly shows Crowe and several others fighting outside a Coffs Harbour night club on November 18, 1999. Crowe owns a ranch outside the small beach-side resort, 280 miles north of Sydney.

Philip Anthony Cropper, 36, and Malcolm Brian Mercer, 37, are accused of threatening to have the video published on national television unless Crowe paid them 200,000 Australian dollars (€120,000). Prosecutors have not said how the men got hold of the video.

Cropper, Mercer and another defendant, Mark James Potts, 42, are also charged with perverting the course of justice by withholding the video from police.

Blackmail carries a maximum 10-year sentence in New South Wales and perverting the course of justice a maximum of 14 years.