Posted on 10/03/2009 11:24:43 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
NEW YORK (AP) - A CBS News employee pleaded not guilty Friday to trying to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million in a plot that spurred the TV host to acknowledge sexual relationships with women who worked on his show.
Robert J. "Joe" Halderman, a producer for the true-crime show "48 Hours," entered the plea in a Manhattan court as he was arraigned on one count of attempted first-degree grand larceny, punishable by five to 15 years upon conviction. Bail was set at $200,000. [snip]
[snip] Documents filed in Stamford Superior Court in Connecticut show that Halderman, of Norwalk, was required to pay about $6,800 a month in child and spousal support to his ex-wife..........
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
This could get very messy. Old Dave may not have given us the whole story.
Silly guy. Everyone knows if you want to commit extortion legally you have to hire a lawyer and file suit. Then your absurd demands are all perfectly legal!
How ironic, Halderman who produced a crime show called 49 Hours will soon be doing 48 Years for his crime.
Heck, he ought to sell the book rights to the stuff he had on Letterman, people would rush to buy it. People love dirt on celebrities.
QUESTION:
Letterman is contracted to Viacom/CBS but owns Worldwide Pants.
Whats is his companies written stated business practices and personal code of conduct?
In the LA Crimes today they said no prohibition of relationships between managers at WWP. Many companies prohibit this because they want to avoid quid pro quo scenarios (sleeping your way to the top) or power positions manipulating underlings “pun intended.”
I could see it being against the law to say, pay me or I will report you as the bank robber, because you really robed the bank, and the bank robber should be turned over to the police.
All Letterman had to do was be truthful and the information became valueless.
There is something about blackmail being a crime (I know it is not nice) that I don't get.
That guy would have got a good million selling the Letterman dirt to the National Enquirer and stayed out of trouble LOL He sure wasn’t thinking!
I guess he calculated, or possibly asked around, and concluded he could get more through blackmail. If he sold the story to a tabloid and was found out he certainly would be fired.
If it’s not truthful, the blackmailer doesn’t have much leverage.
So Letterman would have to have notified himself?
What he is guilty of is practicing law without a license. Were he an attorney he could write all the extortion letters he wants.
He will probably claim he was doing deep under cover journalism for 48 Hours to see if the rumors against Letterman were true. He had to do it deep under cover because who Letterman was to CBS. This is not a bad defense at all. Then the DA will drop the charges or plea it out for nothing.
And the DA will be right. Who should suffer consequences here, the self righteous jerk sleeping with women on his staff while poking fun at everyone elses foibles or the guy who brought it to the attention of the public. That is a pretty easy choice for me.
Yes. I could see it being against the law to say, pay me or I will report you as the bank robber, because you really robed the bank, and the bank robber should be turned over to the police.
Bad analogy and robbing banks is against the law and it does not appear that Letterman broke any laws.
All Letterman had to do was be truthful and the information became valueless.
And that is exactly what Letterman has done.
While Letterman's actions may have been immoral, they are not against the law.
Extortion is against he law.
Because of that, the former 49 Hours producer will soon be producing TV shows for the New York Department of Correctional Services.
I would appreciate if a lawyer could chime in here to give his/her opinion of what kind of exposure Letterman could be facing.
See: Bill O'Reilly
So why is the producer facing charges? Blackmail, I know. How did blackmail get to be illegal if all the information is truthful?
The crime involving a threat for purposes of compelling a person to do an act against his or her will, or for purposes of taking the person’s money or property.
The term blackmail originally denoted a payment made by English persons residing along the border of Scotland to influential Scottish chieftains in exchange for protection from thieves and marauders.
Blackmail:
In blackmail the threat might consist of physical injury to the threatened person or to someone loved by that person, or injury to a person’s reputation. In some cases the victim is told that an illegal act he or she had previously committed will be exposed if the victim fails to comply with the demand.
Although blackmail is generally synonymous with Extortion, some states distinguish the offenses by requiring that the former be in writing.
Blackmail is punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Blackmail
I am not so sure you are correct. If an attorney can ask someone for money to keep something quiet, then I believe private citizens can too. This man worked at CBS. Letterman had created a hostile working environment harming this man and other men and women who either would not or in the case of the men could not have sex with him to get ahead.
So the man represented himself seeking damages. We don’t have two classes of citizens in this country. If an attorney could have attempted to get money for damages from Letterman and the agreement have been kept confidential, then this man can do the same thing representing himself.
You see, I have now given you two defenses that are completely sound. This guy never spends a day in jail.
I agree.
This guy produces a crime type show.
From watching TV and movies “everyone” knows you ask for unmarked bills, small denominations, non-sequential.
What kind of dummy asks for a $2,000,000 cheque-a cheque can be traced?
Maybe these Hollyweird types really are that dumb.
The story does not pass the sniff test
Your point is lost with the fact the guy was attempting to extort 2 million dollars out of Letterman. If Black mail okay as long as it happens to the other side?
If he sold the story, his TV career would be toast. Nobody would ever hire that guy.
Again, as I said were he an attorney no crime. Sorry we do not have classes of citizens in this country. You are either missing the point or stubornly refusing to understand it. Whichever is fine with me.
We might have a trifecta here:
* During discovery and trial, Letterman gets dragged through the mud by his scrotum (couldn’t happen to a more deserving a-hole)
* A CBS teevee producer gets to spend some time in jail
* CBS itself gets raked over the coals, maybe lawsuits against them, maybe their collective ratings go down even more
Popcorn time!
It would appear that the New York State Ledgeslature, the Manhattan DA, and a Manhattan grand jurry is not in agreement with you.
And we will soon see what a Manhattan jurry has to say about the matter.
I’m thinking this is the case.
When Letterman talked about it...he said the guy accused him of “terrible things” or something like that...
I think you might be right. What was he alluding to when he described his behavior as doing “creepy things” with women? That struck me as an odd way of describing romantic sex. But maybe that’s just me. :)
On which he would have to pay tax.
I am of the opinion that extortionists are scum. YMMV
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