SALT LAKE CITY — New details about a 1997 extortion threat against Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller have emerged in from an FBI file obtained after Miller's recent death.

The 86-page file, details of which were published today by The Salt Lake Tribune, includes a copy of an extortion letter as the Jazz prepared for the sixth game of the 1997 NBA Finals against the Chicago Bulls.

Richard Christiansen, then a 42-year-old Tremonton resident with two children and an ailing wife, was accused of sending the letter, which threatened to blow up the Delta Center unless Miller paid $150,000.

"If you don't want the Delta Center to to (sic) look like the Oklahoma Federal Building, then do as we tell you ..." the letter said.

The letter included a map and instructions to deliver the money the following week to a field in Woods Cross.

"If we see any one that looks out of place the deals off. Boom. Good by," the letter read.

Letters arrived at Miller's car dealerships in Midvale and Murray on June 13, 1997, the same day the Bulls eliminated the Jazz in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

Miller notified police after reading the letters three days later, according to the FBI documents.

Authorities decided to capture Christiansen at the meeting place. An FBI agent posing as Miller dropped off a package, which contained a tracking device and no cash.

Thomas Kubic, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Utah in 1997, recalled how the agent's stature and hairline were similar to Miller's.

"For someone who didn't know Larry or only saw him in the papers, (the agent) was a guy who could pass," Kubic said.

An FBI report says Christiansen drove past the meeting place at least twice in his Cadillac Eldorado, and was arrested after he stopped and picked up the package.

The document quoted Christiansen as confessing: "I did it. I really did it."

Christiansen pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of sending a threatening communication, though he argued he never intended to bomb the arena.

He was sentenced to home confinement and probation.

Miller, 64, died of complications from diabetes on Feb. 20.

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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com