NEW YORK — David Letterman was on the receiving end of a sales pitch, not a shakedown, a defense lawyer said Tuesday as he argued that a TV producer accused of extorting the comic was simply peddling a screenplay.
Robert J. “Joe” Halderman’s lawyer asked a judge to toss the attempted first-degree grand- larceny case, which spurred Letterman to acknowledge his office dalliances in a startling on-air monologue last month. Attorney Gerald Shargel said the $2 million exchange was business, not blackmail.
“This was a commercial transaction. Nothing more,” he said.
Halderman acknowledges giving Letterman’s driver a package Sept. 9 with a claim that the screenplay would depict how Letterman’s world would “collapse around him” when information about his private life was disclosed.
