TV news babe Lara Logan got some sweet revenge yesterday when a judge slapped sanctions on the lawyer who ignited a humiliating sex scandal by calling her a home wrecker.
Texas divorce attorney Susie Chmielowiec violated a gag order when she told a reporter last month that the sexy “60 Minutes” war correspondent “stole” her client’s husband while they were working in Iraq.
Chmielowiec represents Kimberly Burkett, 32, who is in the middle of a messy split from war contractor Joseph Burkett, the new man in Logan’s life. Logan and Burkett fell in love in Baghdad and are expecting a child together.
At a hearing in the Burketts’ divorce case yesterday in Kerrville, Texas, a judge blasted Chmielowiec for her loose lips and forced her to pay $750 in penalties to Joseph Burkett. His lawyer had asked for 10 times that.
The judge also demanded that Burkett’s soon-to-be ex submit to an examination of her mental state.
Chmielowiec defied the gag order by running her mouth to the National Enquirer, telling them “Kimberly believes that Lara stole her husband.”
She also told the supermarket tabloid that Joseph Burkett had claimed he was an “assassin in Iraq” and that he got into a knock-down, drag-out fight over Logan with CNN reporter Michael Ware in a Baghdad safe house.
Yesterday, Chmielowiec claimed that she was not paid by the Enquirer for the story – and that she spoke only after the tabloid contacted her. She said they spoke for between five and 30 minutes.
“A gentleman called me from National Enquirer and asked me about some particular incident,” she said. “He caught me off guard.
“It is possible that I inadvertently gave out some information.”
The airing of the public laundry couldn’t have come at a worse time for Logan, who had just been named the chief foreign-affairs correspondent for CBS News when the scandal broke and was hoping to quietly marry Burkett and raise their child.
“I hated it,” she said in an interview about the scandal. “But I’m just going to rise above it and keep going.”
After the Enquirer story came out, a pal told The Post that she only started a romance with Burkett after he was already separated from his wife.
Logan later went public and admitted that she was pregnant by Burkett and that she plans to marry him as soon his divorce – and her own divorce from basketball-playing hubby Jason Siemon – are finalized. She is due in January.