NYC adjudicator refuses to bung Letterman extortion case

NEW YORK – A board should get to adjudge whether a TV producer's diplomacy with David Letterman were attempted bribery or aloof determined business, a adjudicator disqualified Tuesday.

In abnegation to bandy out an attempted admirable burglary allegation adjoin ambassador Robert "Joe" Halderman, the adjudicator put the case on a aisle against trial, which could accompany affidavit from the "Late Show" host about contest in his clandestine activity that accept been pushed into accessible view.

The case spurred Letterman to acquaint admirers in October that he had slept with women on his staff.

Prosecutors say Halderman accepted $2 actor to accumulate quiet about the talk-show host's affairs. Halderman says he was aloof alms Letterman a adventitious to buy — and accumulate clandestine — a agilely buried cine about Letterman's life.

Whether Halderman's conduct amounted to business or abomination "is a archetypal archetype of an affair that is best larboard for a balloon board to decide," Manhattan accompaniment Supreme Cloister Justice Charles Solomon wrote.

The 52-year-old Halderman, a ambassador for CBS' "48 Hours Mystery," could face up to 15 years in bastille if convicted. A balloon date could be set at his abutting cloister actualization March 9.

Defense advocate Gerald Shargel said he was "perfectly accommodating to put it in advanced of a balloon jury." A Letterman advocate has said the actor would agreeably testify.

Prosecutors say the financially beggared Halderman threatened to ruin Letterman's acceptability with advice he had gleaned from his then-girlfriend's diary. It declared her accord with Letterman, her boss, authorities said.

Letterman affiliated longtime adherent Regina Lasko aftermost March. They began dating in 1986 and accept a 6-year-old son.

In consecutive affairs with addition Letterman lawyer, Halderman laid out his awning adventure of affairs a cine — alike insisting on cartoon up a adjustment and accepting paid by analysis in case of a tax audit, prosecutors said.

"The affair is your applicant does not appetite this advice public," Halderman told the advocate in a secretly taped conversation, according to prosecutors. "I accept said, for a price, I will assurance a acquaintance acceding and I will not accomplish this advice public."

Letterman's advocate ultimately gave Halderman a affected $2 actor check. The ambassador was arrested afterwards depositing it.

Halderman says the transaction was no shakedown.

The ambassador threatened annihilation added than a auction to addition abroad if Letterman said no, Shargel said. He wrote in cloister affidavit that advice about celebrity misdeeds is "routinely suppressed through clandestine business arrangement."

Letterman's affected criticized that altercation as an attack to avert absorption abroad from Halderman's behavior. His advocate Daniel J. Horwitz said Tuesday's cardinal "strongly indicates that the focus of this case will be the facts of what Mr. Halderman did and what he said — facts that bulk to archetypal extortion."

Halderman additionally said the bent allegation abandoned his free-speech rights to address a cine or book about Letterman. The adjudicator rebuffed that argument, adage the ambassador "is not actuality prosecuted for assembly either a book or screenplay."

CBS on Tuesday beneath to altercate Halderman's cachet at the network, area he has formed for added than 27 years.