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David Letterman Wasn't Extorted

By Brian Tannebaum, Esq.

As a defense lawyer, the job is to defend. Defending means determining the appropriate defense to the charge. There are simple defenses: didn't do it, that guy did it, insanity, statute of limitations has run, charge is not appropriate, and of course the old "I wasn't stealing his car, I was just borrowing it for a while. I was going to bring it back."While it appears that David Letterman was asked to pay $2 million dollars for silence on some scandalous allegations, we are learning now that, well, it was really nothing more than an everyday "commercial transaction."Let's begin.The relevant portion of the extortion statute of New York says that: a person obtains property by Extortion when he compels or induces another person to deliver such property to himself or to a third person by means of instilling in him a fear that, if the property is not so delivered, the actor or another will:(v) Expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject some person to hatred, contempt or ridiculeAccording to John Eligon over at the New York Times City Blog: the defense lawyer's follow up to this classic interview, is that Robert Joel Halderman was simply trying to sell a story, not extort money, when he delivered a one-page screenplay proposal and other evidence to David Letterman in September about Mr...continue to full post

Full post as published by Criminal Defense on November 11, 2009 (boomark / email).