David Letterman is the luckiest man alive – his extorter has pleaded guilty AND he gets to have sex with his staff.

We wish we were him. But anyway, back to the extortion thing. You may remember that CBS producer Robert Halderman had attempted to blackmail David Letterman out of $2 million with information that Letterman had, on occasion, slept with female members of his staff. Well, now Halderman has pleaded guilty to grand larceny as part of a deal that’ll see him put in jail for six months.

Really, everyone wins this way. Halderman gets a reduced sentence, David Letterman can begin to get on with his life and Tiger Woods gets a timely reminder that he isn’t the only funny-looking millionaire who dicks around from time to time. Everyone wins.

Honestly, this extortion scandal couldn’t have worked out better for David Letterman. When it broke, his refreshingly candid onscreen confession was a ratings winner, finally allowing him to become the most-watched late night host in America again. Then Tiger Woods came along and blew his little scandal clean out of the water. Then his merciless demolition of Jay Leno during the Tonight Show wars consolidated his success, then his Super Bowl advert with Jay Leno showed that he could be the nice guy too.

And now Robert Halderman has pleaded guilty to extorting David Letterman just as Jay Leno got The Tonight Show back, which means that everybody will be tuning in to see Letterman give his side of the story. He’s hardly put a foot wrong throughout any of this. He’s put his penis in the wrong place, admittedly, but you have to admire where his feet have been.

But the point is that Robert Halderman has pleaded guilty in a deal that effectively shaved 14 and a half years off his prison sentence. Here’s how Reuters reported it – and, incidentally, you should absolutey click on that link, because it contains a photo of a policeman pulling the single most disapproving face you will ever see:

Robert Joel Halderman reached a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in exchange for serving six months in jail, performing 1,000 hours of community service and giving up his right to appeal. Halderman, appearing in front of New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon, said he felt “great remorse” for his actions and apologized to Letterman.

At least now everything can go back to normal. Halderman can slowly learn the error of his ways and realise that blackmail is never the answer. David Letterman’s wife can start drawing up a contract saying that she’ll get most of his money if he ever sleeps around again. And, most importantly, the general public can gradually lose interest in David Letterman and start watching Jay Leno in their millions again. Because the general public are nobsacks.

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Tagged as: David Letterman, David Letterman extortion, Robert Halderman