The CBS producer accused in a $2 million shake down of David Letterman was so paranoid, he thought the talk show host might get him fired, burn his house down, or even kill him, according to shocking revelations in the botched extortion scheme.
“I’m not sure how crazy this guy is, or um, how dangerous he might be,” producer Robert Joel Halderman was caught on tape saying of Letterman, according to excerpts released today by Manhattan prosecutors.
“So, just for safe keeping, I’m going to keep a copy of everything,” Halderman insisted during “negotiations” with Letterman’s lawyer — who’d been wired by the DA.
Halderman warned he’ll be keeping a copy of emails and other “source material” romantically linking the married talk show host to several female staffers, even as he offered to sell the originals to Letterman in the form of a “movie treatment.”
Prosecutors say what Halderman was really selling was a promise of silence — in a classic extortion scheme.
“I’m worried about someone calling [CBS CEO] Les Moonves, and saying you know, there’s a producer at “48 Hours” who should be fired,” continued Halderman, an Emmy-winning producer for the show.
“I don’t want that to happen,” Halderman adds — his every word picked up by the hidden mic of Letterman entertainment lawyer James Jackoway as the two sat together at the tony Essex House on Central Park South.
“I’m an employee in good standing, but should I be fired, mysteriously … If my house burns down … Any number of things that, I don’t know this person, I’ve never met this person, I have no idea who or what he is or is capable of,” Halderman rants of Letterman.
Unless he keeps copies, “What is to stop somebody from hurting me? What’s to stop somebody from doing any, any one of a number of things for whatever reason?
“As I said to you, the only way to be sure that I never talk to anybody is for somebody to kill me. Well, you know, I don’t want that to happen.”
The excerpts were included in DA papers filed today in response to Halderman’s November motion that the case be tossed because all Halderman was doing was bringing to Letterman a legitimate business opportunity.
The opportunity? First dibs on a screenplay and book based on the life of an intern-loving TV host whose world, in the words of Halderman’s proposal, “is about to collapse around him” thanks to news leaks about his philandering.
But prosecutors argued in their papers yesterday that Halderman’s own words make his true intentions clear.
“Here’s the issue, and let’s cut to the chase here,” Halderman says in his third and final meeting with Letterman’s lawyer, again at Essex House, the day before he was arrested and charged with Attempted Grand Larceny in the 1st Degree.
“The issue is, your client does not want this information public. I have said, for a price, that I will sign a confidentiality agreement and I will not make this information public. That’s — that’s the deal. If that’s not acceptable then I will move forward.”
One of Halderman’s motives is also made clear in the DA’s papers: His wife has just moved with their son to California, and $2 million “would enable him to visit his son without needing to demand more money from Mr. Letterman in the future,” prosecutors Judy Salwen and Peirce Moser wrote Halderman revealed to the lawyer.
No mention is made of Halderman’s presumed other motive: revenge, both against Letterman and against Halderman’s girlfriend, former Late Night intern Stephanie Birkitt, who’d two-timed him by staying romantically involved with the talk show host even while sharing Halderman’s Norwalk, Conn. home.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon may rule on Halderman’s motion to toss the charges at the producer’s next court date, scheduled for Jan. 19.