’48 Hours’ producer may be headed to jail after trying to cash fake check

By Adam Shapiro

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 10/02/09 – It appears that extortion plots against celebrities are all the rage these days, as new details have emerged in the blackmail scheme against CBS’s “Late Show” host David Letterman.

In a news conference earlier this morning, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau identified the suspect in the plot as Robert “Joe” Halderman, a producer for CBS’s real-life crime show “48 Hours.” Morgenthau would not comment on possible motives but did state that Halderman had been charged with attempted grand larceny between the period of Sept. 9 and Sept 30, an offense punishable by a prison term of five to 15 years.

Letterman explained that roughly three weeks ago, he entered his car and found a package with a letter saying, “I know that you do some terrible, terrible things and that I can prove that you do some terrible things.” The package terrified Letterman, who described it as “something insidious.” “Is he standing down there? Is he hiding under the car? Am I going to get a tap on the shoulder?” questioned Letterman.

The package was indeed from Halderman, who later met with Letterman’s lawyer and threatened to write a book and screenplay exposing Letterman’s numerous sexual relationships with female colleagues unless he was given $2 million in exchange for his continued silence. In all, the perpetrator and Letterman’s lawyer met on three separate occasions, with Halderman being presented with a phony $2 million check during the final meeting. He was arrested in Connecticut on Sept. 30 after trying to cash the fake check.

Mr. Halderman, 51, pleaded not guilty to one count of attempted larceny, after he reportedly threatened to expose Letterman. According to prosecutors, Halderman gave Letterman, 62, a one-page screenplay treatment depicting the talk-show host as a great success whose “world is about to collapse around him” with revelations of his trysts. Halderman also handed over photographs, correspondence and a page of the personal diary of Ms. Birkitt.

In a stunning confession during Thursday’s broadcast, Letterman admitted to his audience to having “had sex with women who work with me on this show” and testifying before a grand jury Thursday morning.  “I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family,” he said. “I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done.”

The confession immediately raised questions of a timeline of these sexual encounters, since Letterman had married his long-time girlfriend Regina Lasko this past March. The couple began dating in 1986 and have a six-year-old son named Harry.

CBS issued a statement saying that “we believe his comments speak for themselves.”