Letterman Blackmailed: Who is Robert ‘Joe’ Halderman?

Robert Halderman, who as of this writing is still an employee of CBS News, though suspended, has posted $200,000 bail and is free tonight.

Newsday’s Verne Gay has been keeping a running thread of information from several anonymous sources on the “48 Hours” producer who went by the name of “Joe” and who is now under arrest for trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman. Halderman, in photo at left from his public Facebook profile, is described as being “very close to his kids,” who are 11 and 18 years old. But he had been paying $6,000 and, during some months, $6,800 in child support payments.

“It had to do with custody of his youngest child,” says the Newsday source, “he was plainly off kilter about it.”

Halderman had been with CBS News since 1991, working in the Northeast Bureau, where sources say he met his wife, Patty Montet. Halderman moved to the London bureau and it was here that his marriage began to break up, says the source. The couple divorced in 2004.

Montet’s father told the New York Post his former son-in-law initially seemed “like a nice guy,” but added, “he was fooling around with a lot of women.”

Halderman’s next court hearing is set for November 10.

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