David Letterman is no stranger to threats
(CBS) News broke Wednesday that David Letterman has been threatened by a contributor to a jihadist website over a joke Letterman made about an al Qaeda leader on "The Late Show with David Letterman."
The threat is the latest in a series of threats - and just plain bad luck - that the comedian and host has had over the years.
In 2009, Letterman was threatened with extortion by Robert Halderman, a former CBS News producer, who said he'd let people know Letterman did "terrible things" if he didn't get a $2 million payment. Letterman responded by getting the authorities involved and talking about the case on his show.
In exchange for a guilty plea, Halderman was sentenced to six months in jail. He served four and had to perform 1,000 hours of community service.
Kelly Frank, a former employee on Letterman's Montana ranch, was arrested in 2005 for an alleged plot to kidnap Letterman's son, Harry, who was then 16 months old. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Frank pleaded not guilty in the case and was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
On the non-threat side, Letterman has had other problems. In 1998, his longtime stalker, Margaret Ray, committed suicide. She had been arrested a decade earlier for stealing Letterman's car. She was then arrested several more times for breaking into Letterman's house in Connecticut (more than once), and according to Entertainment Weekly, resisting arrest and shoplifting near Letterman's mother's home in Carmel, Ind.
The Ed Sullivan Theater, where the "Late Show" tapes, was broken into twice in July. The first break-in was by a man who police say was drunk. The second was by a musician police say was angry that Letterman hadn't responded to his demo tapes.
Letterman has a habit of joking on air about the events that get his name in the news. After the first break-in, one of the entries in the nightly Top 10 list was, "When did stupid human tricks become illegal?"