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Letterman Blackmailer Joe Halderman Heads to Jail

By Kamika Dunlap on May 10, 2010 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Joe Halderman, the former CBS producer and blackmailer who tried to extort $2 million from late-night host David Letterman will be spending the next six months behind bars.

Halderman is scheduled to begin serving the prison sentence handed down in March, on May 4. He pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny, the Associated Press reports.

The Letterman blackmailer will serve his sentence in New York's Rikers Island.

As previously discussed, Halderman entered a guilty plea under a plea agreement in the Letterman extortion case. The charges of extortion carried a maximum sentence of seven years. However, in exchange for his guilty plea, he was given a reduced prison sentence -- 1000 hours of community service and four and a half years probation.

Joe Halderman is an Emmy-nominated news producer, worked on a variety of legal stories for CBS including those on Madeleine 'Maddie' McCann's disappearance and Italy's murder case against American foreign exchange student Amanda Knox.

As previously discussed, Joe Halderman tried to extort David Letterman over a period of three weeks, starting September 9, 2009 and ending September 30, 2009.

Prosecutors say the financially strapped Halderman threatened to reveal information he learned from reading in his then-girlfriend's diary that she was involved with Letterman, her boss.

The "Late Show" host disclosed the extortion case to viewers and acknowledged he had affairs with women on his staff.

Letterman's lawyer ultimately gave Halderman a phony $2 million check. The producer was arrested after depositing it.

Since then viewers have stuck with Letterman but he says the incident has taken a personal toll.

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