A judge has refused to throw out the criminal case against a TV producer who is accused of trying to blackmail David Letterman. Robert "Joe" Halderman, the former CBS News producer, had allegedly demanded $2 million from Letterman in exchange for keeping quiet about a film script that dramatized Letterman's affairs with staffers. A lawyer for Halderman had argued that "his client simply had valuable information and wanted to get paid for it." In ruling against Halderman, Justice Charles Solomon wrote, "Defendant argues that the statute is overbroad as it applies to him because he has a constitutionally protected right to write a book or screenplay about a public figure. Since the defendant is not being prosecuted for authoring either a book or a screenplay, his constitutional right to free speech is not been impacted."