This just in.................. Anchorbabe ... Alycia Lane
A FORMER US newsreader charged with hacking into the personal email of his glamorous younger colleague was obsessed, if an FBI investigation is any measure.
Larry Mendte, 51, hacked into the email of his former colleague Alycia Lane 537 times in 146 days, sometimes checking on her 10 times a day or more.
He logged in from home and work at all times of the day and night and passed on some of the information to a Philadelphia newspaper gossip columnist.
The details of Mendte's spying are spelled out in a FBI file used to charge him with one count of accessing email without authorisation, to which he is expected to plead guilty. He faces up to six months in prison.
"This case ... went well beyond just reading someone's email," acting US Attorney Laurie Magid said.
"The defendant here is charged with a systematic pattern of intrusion that included not a dozen incidents, not a hundred incidents, but hundreds of incidents."
Larry Mendte & Alycia Lane during better times.
Mendte, earning $721,200 a year as one of Philadelphia's top TV news anchors until his recent downfall, read the nightly news of the city's CBS affiliate KYW-TV with Lane until she was fired in January from her $824,200-a-year job for a series of embarrassing off-camera incidents, including a scuffle with police in New York.
Charges against her were reduced in February and will be dismissed next month if she stays out of trouble. She is suing CBS for wrongful dismissal.
Magid said Mendte shared information he obtained from Lane's email - including privileged communications between her and her lawyer - with the columnist "in an attempt to undermine his former colleague's ongoing legal cases".
The federal complaint ties Mendte's spying to at least five stories that appeared in the Daily News about Lane's arrest and legal action related to that and her dismissal.
It also links Mendte to an exchange of emails between Lane and the wife of an ESPN anchor over bikini photos Lane sent him in April 2007. That scandal was reported in the New York Post.
The charge sheet does not say how Mendte obtained his co-anchor's passwords.
He was fired in May this year, three weeks after FBI agents seized his home computer.
Lane's lawyer Paul Rosen said Mendte had acted out of jealousy over a new contract Lane signed with the station in April 2006.
Mendte allegedly first accessed her email a month before, during her negotiations.
"From this charge, it would appear there are two faces of Larry Mendte," Rosen said.
"One is the false face to Alycia Lane as a friend and co-anchor and the second is the dark side of Larry Mendte, where he methodically set out to destroy his co-anchor's life, both professionally and publicly."
Mendte's lawyer Michael Schwartz said his client had fully cooperated with investigators.
"He continues to cooperate and will accept full responsibility for his actions," he added.
Newsblues reported that sources close to the situation said Mendte used a keyboard logging device. Now Mendte's career appears over and Lane is looking around for another gig, but very few stations are biting.
Friday morning after he pleaded guilty to hacking into Alycia Lane's email, Larry Mendte held a news conference Friday afternoon (at 5 PM - convenient...) and explained how and why he did it: http://www.philly.com/inquirer.....ter_guilty_plea.html
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