Steven Kunes (born 1956) is an American screenwriter, author, playwright, con man, forger and plagiarist. Kunes is a convicted felon.
Kunes was born in 1956 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and attended New York University.
Kunes has written for Salute to America's Pets^[1][ and Cheers.^[2]
Daily Variety reported on June 10, 1992 that Kunes had sold a screenplay entitled "First Comes Love" for $1.2 million; no film was ever produced.^[3]
In 1982, Kunes attempted to sell to People magazine a fake interview with reclusive author J. D. Salinger, whom he had never met. Salinger sued and settled the case under the conditions that Kunes was "permanently enjoined from representing by any means that he is associated with or ever met Salinger", barred from "exhibiting, transmitting or exhibiting documents, writing or statements attributed to Salinger" and "required to collect and turn over any offending such documents or writings for destruction". The "interview" was never published.^[4][5] He later succeeded in selling a fake interview with Jimmy Buffett to theSanta Barbara Daily Sound.^[6]
Steven Kunes was arrested on March 17, 2011 for purportedly swindling his friend, former Café Buenos Aires owner Wally Ronchietto, out of $2,000 for a movie deal that didn’t exist.^[6] On April 23, 2011, Noozhawk, a Santa Barbara online publication, announced that it has removed six of Kunes' articles from their digital archives as two contained plagiarized passages.^[7]
On August 27, 2011, a Santa Barbara judge issued a $200,000 bench warrant for his arrest when he failed to appear in court.^[8] Thought to have been hiding inBucks County, Pennsylvania, he was apprehended in New Jersey less than a month later. ^[9] At court, Kunes pleaded guilty and admitted to forging checks.^[10] On May 4, 2012, he was sentenced to five years in jail for felony commercial burglary and grand theft by false pretenses. A plea deal allowed for a sentence of only four years if Kunes had paid restitution to his victims, but no payments were made.^[11][12] On February 25, 2013, Noozhawk, a Santa Barbara online news publisher, reported that Kunes had been arrested again. He had been serving his five year sentence and had been approved for electronic monitoring on August 1, 2012. Kunes removed the device on August 22, 2012 and mailed the device back to the Sheriff. A photo posted on the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office Facebook photo page led to his identification at a Carpinteria cafe and his subsequent arrest.^[13]