NY Bloger

A TV producer accused of trying to blackmail talkshow host David Letterman feared the star could burn his house down – or even kill him, according to newly released audio tapes.

Robert ‘Joe’ Halderman was caught telling Letterman’s lawyer that he was afraid of the presenter.

“I’m not sure how crazy this guy is, or um, how dangerous he might be,” Halderman, 52, said of Letterman, according to excerpts released by Manhattan prosecutors.

“So, just for safekeeping, I’m going to keep a copy of everything,” Halderman insisted during “negotiations” with Letterman’s lawyer – who was wearing a wiretap after he had told prosecutors about the alleged $2 million extortion plot.

Halderman, a producer on the CBS network’s show, 48 Hours Mystery, said he would be keeping e-mails romantically linking married Letterman to female members of his staff.

He claims he was trying to pitch a TV idea to Letterman, while Letterman’s lawyers insist his actions were an example of “classic blackmail”.

“I’m worried about someone calling [CBS chief executive] Les Moonves, and saying, you know, there’s a producer at ’48 Hours’ who should be fired,” Halderman said on the tapes.

“I don’t want that to happen,” Halderman told Letterman lawyer James Jackoway as the two sat together at the Essex House hotel in New York.

“I’m an employee in good standing, but should I be fired, mysteriously . . . If my house burns down . . . Any number of things that, I don’t know this person, I’ve never met this person, I have no idea who or what he is or is capable of,” Halderman rants about Letterman.

He added: “As I said to you, the only way to be sure that I never talk to anybody is for somebody to kill me. Well, you know, I don’t want that to happen.”