Sextortion: A Recent History

October 2009: David Letterman announced on "Late Night" that he was victim of an extortion plot by Robert "Joe" Halderman, a producer for the CBS news program "48 Hours." Halderman discovered that Letterman had an affair with his girlfriend after reading her diary, which detailed the affair. He threatened to write a book or screenplay about Letterman's affairs with women on the show if the comedian didn't pay him $2 million. Halderman now faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of extortion. Watching Letterman apologize on "Late Night" reminded us of all the sex/blackmail scandals that have hit the political world over the past few years...

July 2009: TN state Sen. Paul Stanley had it all: A strong conservative record (among other things, he sponsored legislation to help prevent gay couples from adopting, and spoke out against pre-marital sex), a plum position as a Sunday school teacher and board member for the Christ United Methodist Church, a job as a financial adviser for Stanford Financial Group (yes, that Stanford), and like every good conservative, a wife and family. That is, until things got a little hairy with Stanley's 22-year-old female intern and mistress, whose boyfriend had "provocative" photos of her in Stanley's apartment. He requested that Stanley pay him $10,000 or he'd come forward about the affair. Ultimately, Stanley went to the authorities, who charged the young man with extortion.

June 2009: When Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) first came forward to admit his affair with a former staffer, Ensign supporters were whispering to the media that the mistress's husband, Doug Hampton -- also a former Ensign staffer -- had tried to extort money from the Senator in order to keep the affair quiet. But the Ensign camp soon walked back these allegations. Extortion or not, it seems that Ensign did help out Hampton before he came forward, first by helping him get a lobbyist job, according to The Times, and then by taking action on behalf of Hampton's clients. The Senate Ethics Committee is now investigating whether this violated Senate rules.

October 2008: After Mark Foley resigned over those inappropriate emails, Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL) was elected in his place to remove the "ethical cloud" from West Palm Beach politics. Unfortunately, Mahoney was soon embroiled in his own scandal, when he agreed to pay a former mistress, Patricia Allen, $121,000 to stop her from filing a lawsuit. The Congressman also promised Allen a $50,000-a-year post at the agency that did his campaign advertising. Mahoney was unfazed by the scandal, telling ABCNews.com in November of 2008 "I'm still a congressman with a job to do, and I intend to ride this out." Impressive bravado from a man who was not actually re-elected to Congress.

October, 2007: WA state Rep. Richard Curtis resigned after revelations that he had an affair with a man he met in an erotic video store. Just three days before his resignation, Curtis had insisted to a local newspaper that he was not gay, and that the sex allegations were falsely cooked up by the man, Cody Castagna, in an attempt to extort the GOP legislator. Curtis said Castagna stole his wallet and demanded $1,000 for its return, or else he'd expose the affair. Castagna admitted to police that he threatened to tell Curtis's wife about the affair, but contended that Curtis had initially agreed to pay him $1,000 for sex but then refused when the time, er, came. Curtis denied this charge, saying that he never offered to pay Castegna for sex, but did offer to give him $100 for gas money.

August 2004: Gov. Jim McGreevey (D-NJ) resigned after admitting to an affair with a former male aide. The aide, Golan Cipel, was appointed as adviser to the state Office of Homeland Security in 2002. Eight months later, he resigned his $110,000-a-year post, at which point he threatened to file a lawsuit accusing the governor of sexual harassment. McGreevey called the FBI and claimed that Cipel had requested $5 million to quash the suit. Later, the married governor would call a press conference, and give his famous "I am a gay American" resignation speech.