Hi. I'd like to contribute to this thread. I knew Kurt off-and-on from 2000 to 2003, almost exactly during the time I was married to a then-famous female ticklee in the online tickling community; she was known as Josie the Ticklish Pussycat. (Our split had nothing to do with tickling. It was an amicable split, and we have wished each other well.)
We lived in her hometown of Albany NY. (A minor reason why we honeymooned in San Francisco was to meet Kurt and Ticklegal; during that last week of September 2000, they took us out to dinner, and we all played together another night. [At the time, he was bi-coastal; he lived in San Francisco for half the year, and in northern New Jersey for half the year.])
After the honeymoon, Josie and I talked about taking advantage of her fame to host small tickling gatherings at our Albany home, and we decided to do so. We decided to make a slight change to the name and abbreviation of NEST (the Northeast Society of Ticklephiles) for our own gathering; we called it NYST (the New York [State] Society of Ticklephiles). We held four gatherings from 2001 to 2003, and Kurt attended three of them. He brought a LOT of tickling/bondage equipment for one of them... I believe it was NYST II in the spring of 2002.
He was friendly, cordial, funny and witty, and very talented. I'm under the impression that he still is. I didn't hear him brag about anything, or make any statements about "inventing" the fetish, or say or do anything negative. He just seemed like a terrific guy who had access to money and resources, and was happy to spend and use them for the fetish we all love. I learned that he dove into the fetish as soon as he could; in San Francisco, he showed me a picture of himself, holding a set of stocks he built himself at age ten. AGE TEN! There are some ten-year-olds who don't know which side of the playground smells the worst! (And I think I told him that... and then I properly credited it to George Carlin. I think he was an early bloomer -- or a very early bloomer -- whereas I know I was a VERY LATE bloomer.)
As for 9/11, this is what he told me and Josie -- and I'll never forget this. That morning, he was in a recording studio -- his regular job is as a working performer (actor, singer, dancer), and you HAVE seen him and/or heard his voice in multiple television commercials -- when everyone in the studio heard a very loud crash. (The first plane hit one of the towers.) Everyone ran outdoors to see what happened, and Kurt's first reaction was to run TOWARD the towers. (Many people's instinct is to run AWAY from danger, but others have a different instinct -- to try to be helpful to others.)
He told us that as he approached the towers, he saw a man who "looked in really bad shape." Therefore, Kurt threw his cell phone to that man, with the understanding that he could then use it for anything he needed or wanted it to do. (Unfortunately, that man, whoever he was, showed up later in a lower Manhattan morgue, with that phone strapped to his body... and because Kurt's name was on the phone, the morgue apparently labeled that corpse with Kurt's name... and that information went online... which led to many rumors in the tickling community that Kurt was dead.)
After throwing his cell phone to that man, Kurt tried to help others, but before he could find a person in charge to ask "How can I help?", he was hit by a large chunk of falling asphalt, and he immediately collapsed.
He eventually returned to consciousness in a lower Manhattan hospital several days later. He had a punctured lung, multiple fractured ribs, and a concussion. He got the surgical operations and treatment he needed, and he was released from the hospital, but he told Josie and me that his energy level just wasn't the same after that incident... and that was coupled with a perfectly-understandable case of survivor's guilt.
I'm under the impression that Kurt did eventually recover his pre-9/11 energy levels, but it took many years.
I liked spending time with him, and learning from him. His experiences and ideas truly astonished me. All of that came from direct contact with the man. I have no direct knowledge of anything sneaky, nefarious, sinister, or criminal. I've heard the rumors, but I don't believe them. I wish him all the best.