NEW YORK — A CBS newsman who prosecutors said was desperate and deep in debt was charged Friday with trying to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million in a plot that forced the late-night comic to acknowledge having sex with some of the women who work for him.
The case created a messy legal and professional problem for one of CBS’s most valuable personalities. Commentators and bloggers accused Letterman of hypocrisy because he has made a career of mocking politicians mercilessly for their sexual transgressions.
From a strictly business perspective, Letterman’s revelations on Thursday’s show were an immediate success: His overnight ratings were up 38 percent over the same night a week ago, the Nielsen Co. said.
Robert J. “Joe” Halderman, a producer for the true-crime show “48 Hours Mystery,” pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan court as he was arraigned on one count of attempted first-degree grand larceny, punishable by five to 15 years in prison. Bail was set at $200,000.
Public records show that until August, Halderman lived in Norwalk, Conn., with Stephanie Birkitt, 34, a “Late Show” staffer who used to work at “48 Hours Mystery.”According to representatives of Letterman’s show, Birkitt is one of the women who had a sexual relationship with him, The New York Times reported.
All of the affairs took place before Letterman’s marriage to Regina Lasko in March, said Tom Keaney, spokesman for Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants. The couple began dating in 1986 and have a 5-year-old son, Harry.
Beyond the official stance, CBS executives have told the Worldwide Pants executives that they continue to support Letterman. But they said that would change if information of a more damning nature were to emerge, the Times reported.
Assistant District Attorney Judy Salwen said Halderman gave the talk-show host a package of materials that “contained clear, explicit and actual threats that indicate this defendant . . . (wanted to) destroy the reputation of Mr. Letterman and to submit him and his family to humiliation and ridicule.”
Halderman’s attorney, Gerald Shargel, said Halderman worked at CBS for 27 years and had no prior criminal record. He described him as an involved father who coached soccer, baseball and football and has two children, ages 11 and 18.
Timeline: From threat to arrest
Sept. 9: Robert J. Halderman is alleged to have left an envelope in David Letterman’s car. According to authorities, he wrote that he needed “to make a large chunk of money” and said that Letterman’s world would “collapse around him” if damaging information about him were made public. Letterman acknowledged that the letter contained proof that the late-night host had sexual relationships with members of his staff.
Sept. 15 and 23 and Wednesday: Halderman met with Letterman’s lawyer each of those days in Manhattan’s Essex House hotel, the last two times with the lawyer recording the conversations and prosecutors listening in, said District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. At the last meeting, the lawyer gave Halderman a phony check for $2 million, Morgenthau said.
Thursday: Halderman deposited the check in a Connecticut bank and was arrested later in the day outside CBS News’ Manhattan office, Morgenthau said.
Sources: The Associated Press; Bloomberg News Service
