All Blog Posts from Crimesider

NEW YORK - A TV news producer accused of blackmailing David Letterman in exchange for keeping quiet about his sexual affairs was only trying to sell the late-night comic a screenplay, a defense lawyer said Tuesday.

Robert J. "Joe" Halderman's lawyer asked a judge to toss the attempted first-degree grand larceny case, saying the producer did nothing illegal in slipping Letterman documents alluding to the "Late Show" host's dalliances and taking a $2 million check from Letterman's lawyer.

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NEW YORK - A lawyer for the TV news producer accused of blackmailing talk show host David Letterman plans to ask a judge to dismiss an extortion case that prompted the late-night comic to acknowledge affairs with staffers.

Robert "Joe" Halderman is due in a Manhattan court Tuesday. His defense attorney, Gerald Shargel, said he planned to challenge whether the evidence presented to a grand jury was sufficient and ask a judge to dismiss the attempted first-degree grand larceny charge against his client.

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Gilbert, Ariz., Sept. 27, 2001

Doug Grant called his friend, Chad White, to say he had just discovered his wife, Faylene, unconscious in the bathtub. White, a physician's assistant, immediately dialed 911.

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NEW YORK - Was Stephanie Birkitt, 34, romantically involved with David Letterman and his alleged extortionist, Robert "Joe" Halderman at the same time?

If you believe a report in today's New York Post, the long-time Letterman staffer, whose secret diary police say is at the center of an alleged extortion plot against the late night king, was indeed two-timing the man now accused of threatening to reveal Letterman's office sex trysts unless he coughed up $2 million.

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NEW YORK (CBS/AP) - The pages of Stephanie Birkitt's personal diary were presumably not meant for the eyes of her former lover, David Letterman, or a recent one, long-time CBS News producer Robert "Joe" Halderman.

But it was pages copied from the diary, that were the centerpiece of Halderman's plan to extort $2 million from the late night king, threatening to expose his office sexcapades if he did not comply, according to law enforcement officials.

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NEW YORK - An attorney for Robert "Joe" Halderman, the CBS producer accused of extorting David Letterman over the talk show host's sexual affairs, says he wants to put the late night king on the stand.

"I look forward to cross-examining David Letterman," Gerald Shargel told Ann Curry on the "Today Show" Monday.

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Morgantown, W.Va. - November 2005 - Firemen discovered James Michael's charred body in his bed after putting out a fire in his home. Because police felt his wife, Michelle, acted suspiciously uncaring at the time, they brought her in for questioning.

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Reno, Nevada - June 12, 2006 - When Judge Chuck Weller was shot in his chambers through a window in the Reno family courthouse, police and SWAT teams blanketed a 10-block area. Minutes later, they zeroed in on the location of the shooter in a parking garage across the street.

FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

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Columbia, Mo. October 31, 2001 - Kent Heitholt, a popular sports editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune, is found beaten and strangled with his own belt in the newspaper’s parking lot.

FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

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NEW YORK - Travis Alexander was a young, successful businessman, who fully embraced his Mormon faith. When he met Jodi Arias, a beautiful, aspiring photographer, the pair quickly became an item. Jodi made Travis' world her own, even adopting his Mormon beliefs.

Their tumultuous relationship was filled with break-ups and other liaisons and complicated by their faith, which dictates no prema rital sex. Giving in to their desires and photographing their exploits, the couple was painfully aware that in the eyes of their spiritual community they were living a lie.

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