Celebrity blackmail no cause for jail: lawyer
“Celebrity misdeed” has been used by lawyers to argue the case for a former CBS executive accused of blackmailing David Letterman.
Drawing on the Tiger Woods scandal, they claimed the exec, Joe Halderman (pictured), was only trying to sell a “very marketable story”.
Woods is alleged to have paid hush money to the first of his alleged mistresses, Rachel Uchitel. Halderman’s lawyer argued that if Uchitel could get off scot free after a hush money pay-off, so should his client. But the Uchitel pay-off has never been confirmed.
Halderman is accused of grand larceny in trying to extort $2 million from Letterman in a failed threat to unveil his office affair with a former assistant. His lawyer Gerald Shargel said: “Evidence of celebrity misdeeds has a significant fair market value. Evidence of such misdeeds is routinely suppressed through private business arrangement.”
The argument fell flat with Letterman’s attorney, Daniel J. Horwitz, who said: “This was not a sale of anything legitimate, this was classic extortion.”
The case could prove to be a landmark in future celebrity extortions.