NEW YORK — A former TV producer pressured by debt and riven by jealousy admitted Tuesday he tried to gain vengeance and money by shaking down David Letterman in a case that bared the late-night icon’s affairs with staffers.
Robert “Joe” Halderman, 52, pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny, acknowledging he tried to chisel $2 million from the talk-show host. He threatened to destroy Letterman’s reputation by airing his workplace dalliances — using information that authorities have said Halderman mined from an ex-girlfriend’s diary.
The plea deal by Halderman, a producer for CBS’s “48 Hours Mystery” at the time, spares him a potential 15 years in prison had he been convicted. He is due instead to be sentenced to six months in jail and 1,000 hours of community service.
It also spares Letterman the prospect of a trial that could have put his private life on display, though the comedian defused much of Halderman’s potential bombshell last fall by revealing himself that he had had sex with women on his staff.
The case at first dealt a blow to Letterman’s nice-guy image; he described his office affairs as “creepy” as he stunned viewers with an Oct. 1 monologue that disclosed the liaisons and the blackmail plot.
Halderman apologized to the host of the “Late Show” as he spelled out the details of his crime in a Manhattan court, reading a prepared statement at first so quickly that the judge asked him to slow down.
“I attempted to extort $2 million from David Letterman by threatening to disclose personal and private information about him, whether true or false,” he said. “I feel great remorse for what I have done.”
