Joe Halderman

For the science fiction writer, see Joe Haldeman.

Robert Joel "Joe" Halderman is an American television news writer, director, producer, and convicted felon.

Career

Halderman's journalistic career began in the early 1980s, when he was a producer on the CBS Morning Show with Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis. In 1986 he produced the CBS specials AIDS Hits Home and 48 Hours on Crack Street. He became a foreign reporter who travelled to more than 70 countries, and was responsible for war reportage from nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Bosnia.

He was stationed in London for 12 years, throughout most of the 1990s, from where he reported on events in the Soviet Union and later Russia.In 1992 he wrote and produced the CBS special Somalia: A Country Is Dying. In February 1998 he worked on CBS coverage of the Olympic Winter Games XVIII.

During the 2000s, Halderman worked on domestic shows for CBS, He produced the show Flashpoint in 2007, and from 2005 - 2009, he was also a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series 48 Hours, including episodes such as Out of the Shadows (2005), about a man who for 18 years was wrongly suspected of being the serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK Killer; and Virginia Tech: Anatomy of a Rampage (2007), about the school shooting and mass murder known as the Virginia Tech massacre which took place at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In September 2006 he produced Five Years Later: How Safe Are We?, a look at US security since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

Halderman's work at CBS News won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for broadcast journalism and seven Emmy Awards. He also received an Emmy Award nomination for the 2006 film Beslan: Three Days in September which was narrated by Julia Roberts and aired on Showtime. The film, which Halderman wrote, directed and produced, combined guerilla footage and interviews with family members, soldiers, local politicians, school officials, and survivors to describe the hostage-taking and massacre of hundreds of people at a children's school by Chechen rebels in North Ossetia, Russia.

In July 2010, after his conviction and incarceration, Halderman was nominated for an Emmy as a producer of a 48 Hours Mystery segment regarding Amanda Knox. The Emmy was won instead by a 60 Minutes segment on the War in Pakistan.

Personal life

Halderman married Patty Montet in 1990 and the couple had two children. They divorced in 2004. In 2007, Halderman was ordered to pay Montet $6,800 per month in child and spousal support until May 2011, when the payments will be reduced to $5,966 until May 2014, according to papers filed in Stamford Superior Court in Connecticut. In May, 2009, Montet bought a house in Fort Collins, Colorado and moved there with her sons.

According to CBS News, Halderman and Stephanie Birkitt lived together in Halderman's Norwalk, Connecticut home until August 2009, when she reportedly moved out. She was also romantically linked to David Letterman during the same time.

Blackmail attempt

In October, 2009, Halderman was accused of attempting to blackmail David Letterman for two million dollars. According to Letterman, who described the incident on his television show on October 1, 2009, someone had threatened to expose Letterman's sexual affairs with female staff employees in the form of a screenplay and a book, if he was not paid off. Halderman was arrested when he attempted to cash a phony two million dollar check given to him by Letterman's lawyer.

At the time of his arrest, Halderman was a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series 48 Hours. Halderman was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and he pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted grand larceny in criminal court on October 2, 2009. If convicted, Halderman faced punishment of five to 15 years. Bail was set at $200,000, which Halderman posted.

Halderman had at one time lived with one of Letterman's assistants, Stephanie Birkitt. As a member of the CBS page program, Birkitt worked for both Letterman's show and for 48 Hours before becoming a staff employee for Letterman.

On October 15, CBS News made the unusual announcement that the company's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, had been assigned to conduct an "in-depth investigation" into the blackmail of Letterman by Halderman, a CBS News producer.

On March 9, 2010, Halderman pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in the second degree and received a 6-month jail sentence, to be followed by five years probation and 1,000 hours of community service.

Halderman was released from Rikers Island on September 2, 2010, after serving only four months of his six-month sentence. He still has to complete 1,000 hours of community service and will most likely be working with the homeless and recently released prisoners.