Flirtatious e-mails of NFL Network's Rich Eisen and CBS3's Alycia Lane

FOR TWO PEOPLE who claimed to be "friends," former CBS3 anchor Alycia Lane and married NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen exchanged some pretty flirty e-mails in 2006 and 2007, according to documents filed last week in Common Pleas Court by CBS Broadcasting.

In one, Lane remembered their night at the Astor Hotel restaurant in Miami and a nearby curb where there was "lots of fun."

In another, Eisen recommends a bar in Los Angeles, where he lives, "especially if I'm the arm candy."

"Will you be my arm candy at any point?," she writes back.

In another exchange, Eisen asks, "What would they say if I just flew into Philly and swept you off your feet?" Lane responds: "Uhhh ... they'd say ... uhhh ... 'isn't he married?' LOL"

The flirtatious e-mails were included in a motion by CBS to compel Lane to produce documents related to her suit against CBS3 for wrongful termination. She claims she was fired despite a station investigation that cleared her, and that the station "intentionally and maliciously damaged and destroyed the plaintiff's reputation."

Lane, now a morning anchor at KNBC in Los Angeles, was given the boot in January 2008 after a high-profile arrest in New York City. She was charged with assaulting a female police officer, but those charges were later dismissed.

The network, which owns and operates CBS3, is attempting to compel Lane to produce documents related to issues brought up in the suit, such as the bikini-photos scandal and her arrest in New York. She and her lawyer have refused to do so, according to court documents, claiming that the material CBS is seeking is confidential.

CBS counters in the motion that Lane "seeks to shroud the truth in secrecy by insisting that any documents" she hands over are subject to "confidentiality." But it's all a ruse to make sure the public record excludes evidence "which confirms that her claims are founded upon lies," according to the motion.

Paul Rosen, Lane's lawyer, said he intends to seek additional damages from CBS3 for its having released the e-mails.

"It's mind-boggling that the CBS corporation would direct their attorneys to continue harassing Alycia Lane by selectively leaking her personal e-mails," Rosen said, "especially after CBS-owned KYW-TV allowed their co-anchor and convicted felon Larry Mendte to terrorize Alycia for years by breaking into her computer thousands of times since March 2006 and disseminating her private information to reporters."

Mendte pleaded guilty in August 2008 to one felony count of illegally accessing Lane's e-mail.

Eisen, through an NFL Network spokesman, declined to comment.

About one month after the e-mail exchange between Lane and Eisen, the two flirts found themselves in a kerfuffle with Eisen's wife, broadcast reporter Suzy Shuster.

The New York Post broke the story in May 2007 that Lane had sent Eisen shots of herself and her friends wearing bikinis.

The paper reported that Shuster saw the photos and shot back at Lane with a note brimming with sarcasm.

Lane told the Inquirer in May 2007 that she immediately responded by e-mail to the presumably seething wife. "Oh, my God. I think you're misconstruing this. [Rich and I] are friends and I don't think you know that. This is absolutely innocent." CBS lawyers said they included Lane's and Eisen's correspondences (see sidebar), which were written by both of them from their work e-mails, to show that Lane is "trying to conceal the fact that she had far more than a purely 'platonic' relationship" with Eisen as she claims.

Lane also may have revealed herself in a different way in her exchange with Eisen, CBS lawyers say. Lane tells him that she and her gay friends are planning a trip to Los Angeles. Two months later, he asks her "can't we just ditch the gays and be heterosexual?"

Lane agrees and says her pals "will likely be being all 'gay ish' anyway." CBS says in its motion, "it is not a far leap from these insensitive references during a casual conversation to the possibility that [Lane] did in fact direct a homophobic slur during a drunken confrontation with a female NYPD police officer."

The network said its former star employee "has no valid concerns about confidentiality" because she confided in a CBS3 viewer for more than a year in an exchange of e-mails. Lane admitted that she "doesn't really know" the woman and shared details with the viewer about her deteriorating marriage to second husband Jay Adkins, according to the motion.

"He convinced me it was me. He made me feel insane. I hung on [because] I was so confused and so scared of being divorced again," Lane wrote to the woman she called "Patti."

"Such correspondence with complete strangers belie her fake concerns about 'confidentiality' here," the motion read.