Letterman’s sex-extortion sting

What David Letterman gained by going public with his 'Late Show' affairs rather than paying $2 million

“Boom!” said Lane Brown in New York Magazine. “As if David Letterman weren’t already beating Conan badly enough,” his show Thursday night is sure to be a ratings bonanza. Letterman told his Late Show audience how he was the target of a $2 million extortion plot in which the blackmailer—now arrested, thanks to a sting operation—threatened to reveal Letterman’s affairs with multiple female Late Show staffers (watch Letterman’s confession).

The “arrestee,” said Jen Chung in Gothamist, is 51-year-old CBS 48 Hours producer (or ex-producer) Robert "Joe" Halderman, according to TMZ and Radar Online, who lived with one of the women Letterman slept with. The affairs were over before he married Regina Lasko—with whom he has a son—last March, but happened during their long relationship.

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