JUDGE UPHOLDS DAVID LETTERMAN CHARGES

David Letterman

A New York Supreme Court Judge yesterday upheld the indictment of a CBS News producer charged with trying to extort late-night host David Letterman, rejecting the defense's effort to dismiss the case. Attorneys for Robert Joel Halderman, who is accused of demanding $2 million in exchange for a screenplay treatment he wrote about affairs Letterman had with female staffers, had sought to get the court to drop the charge of attempted grand larceny in the first degree. Judge Charles H. Solomon said prosecutors had met their burden of proof, and he rejected the defense's claim that Halderman's constitutional right to free speech had been violated.
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