I would sexually harass that SO HARD.

There are some new developments in the ongoing David Letterman saga, and you hungry little gossip piranha should start churning the water into a frenzy now, because it looks like there’s some salacious chum on the way. In an enlightening New York Times article, we learn that (a) Letterman’s assistant/side-piece Stephanie Birkitt is on paid administrative leave, would-be blackmailer Joe Halderman is so well-respected at CBS News that two of his colleagues posted his bail, and (c) Halderman’s attorney, Gerald Shargel, is prepared to F Letterman up:

“I’m looking to level the playing field,” Mr. Shargel said. He said that the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, “seemed to embrace Letterman’s story” in a news conference last week and made it appear that “this was an open and shut case” against his client. And he said that Mr. Letterman had a national television show on which to make his points.

“All I’m saying is, there is more to the story,” Mr. Shargel said. Asked about the accusation that he seemed to be trying to muddy Mr. Letterman’s reputation, Mr. Shargel said: “This is not a parlor game. My client is facing 15 years in jail. If Letterman gets muddied up, so be it.”

Mr. Shargel said that no one from the prosecution had approached him to discuss a plea arrangement. “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

Oh yeah. That’s the stuff. Man, I love me some scorched-earth warfare. I’m gonna cook up some popcorn and make sure my splatterguard is set up. This is about to get bloodier than 300 remade as a period piece.

“Hang on, I’m getting an urgent call from myself twenty years from now.”

All right kids, it’s time to put away your orangutan-and-hound videos, because things are about to get serious around here again. We’ve got more gossip sausage to make, so get your meat grinders ready for new details about David Letterman’s relationship with Stephanie Birkitt (and his harem of “assistants”). Gawker says…

• Letterman had a cadre of female assistants who fell heavily on the young and attractive side of the ledger. He was said to employ as not less than three of these Special Assistants to the Host last year. The assistant tally however, was said to have climbed as high as five at moments.

• The scuttlebutt on the set had it that current assistant-in-question, Stephanie Birkitt, received extra compensation for duties as his First Assistant, in the form of Letterman picking up the tab for her graduate law studies at the Yeshiva University Law School.

This should work out well. I get the feeling Letterman may need legal advice in the coming weeks.

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