The television producer trying to extort $2 million from American talk show host David Letterman by threatening to reveal his sexual affairs with women who worked on his late-night program on CBS plead guilty Tuesday.

Robert Joel Halderman was a former producer for the CBS news program called "48 Hours Mystery”.  Yesterday morning, he made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to ‘attempted grand larceny’ in exchange for serving six months in jail, performing 1,000 hours of community service, and giving up his right to appeal.  This spares him 15 years in prison, had he been convicted.

Under the plea, Halderman has to give prosecutors the diaries (from his former girlfriend, Stephanie Birkitt) that he claimed he would be using to destroy Letterman’s reputation.  He is also required to turn over photos, screenplay notes and other materials he has concerning Letterman and must agree never to reveal the contents.  The scandal was made public back in October at which point a married Letterman admitted the affair with a female employee (later realized as Stephanie Birkitt) on air.  Neither viewers nor critic knew exactly how to respond to his approach…but as other sex scandals broke into the news (John Edwards and Tiger Woods); Letterman’s took a back seat.

Formal sentencing for Halderman will take place in May.