by KYW's Tony Hanson
Federal charges have been filed against former CBS-3 anchorman Larry Mendte.
Prosecutors say he intentionally accessed the e-mail account of former co-anchor Alycia Lane, without her authorization, over and over again between March of 2006 and this year.
Acting US attorney Laurie Magid (right) says Mendte was reading Lane's e-mail from work, from his Chestnut Hill home, even from his vacation home:
"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. More than 500 separate intrusion into the e-mail accounts."
Investigators say that Mendte accessed her e-mail 26 times in the first four days of this year alone.
And authorities allege that Mendte leaked information he learned from the e-mails to a newspaper reporter in an attempt to undermine her ongoing legal cases. She had been fired earlier following an incident in New York (related story) and is now suing the television station (related story).
Mendte's attorney, Michael Schwartz, says the charges against Mendte should come as no surprise to anyone:
"As we continually have said from day one, Larry has been cooperating fully with investigators. He continues to cooperate and will accept full responsibility for his actions."
Mendte was suspended and then fired by CBS-3 when his legal troubles surfaced (related story). His home was raided by the FBI and his home computer seized.
Mendte is expected to surrender in a couple of weeks, and sources say a guilty plea is expected.
Television station CBS-3 (KYW-TV) and KYW Newsradio 1060 are owned by CBS Corp.
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