Letterman's Blackmailer Pleads Guilty: David Loftus

It doesn’t sound unreasonably light to me, but then, I couldn’t care less about the fortunes of Halderman or Letterman. The former sounds like a loser perpetually on the make and the latter comes across as swell-headed celeb who abused his power, was happy to keep his private life very private until events overtook him, and then skillfully used breaking events to boost his sagging career. Since the drunk driver who killed my father got just two years in prison, anything more for what was merely conspiracy to commit a crime that didn’t end up victimizing anyone sounds extreme.

It’s not the fame of the alleged victim that should dictate the size of the sentence, but the seriousness of the crime and the likelihood that the perpetrator poses a future danger to society. In this case, the former was not particularly heinous, and the likelihood of the latter very small.

Community service that actually results in helping someone is certainly preferable to spending taxpayer dollars to house and feed a convict who is unlikely to go out threatening or assaulting another potential victim. I suspect Letterman himself is not interested in seeing Halderman receive a stiffer punishment; just that he goes away and doesn’t bother “Dave” again.