Mendte faces a felony count

LARRY Mendte, KYW-TV ex-anchor and onetime comedian, found out that allegedly hacking into former co-anchor Alycia Lane's computer 537 times this year was no laughing matter.

In fact, acting U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid called it a crime.

Yesterday, Mendte was charged with a one-count felony: intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization to obtain information.

"These charges are unprecedented," said attorney Paul Rosen, who separately has sued CBS3 on Lane's behalf alleging wrongful termination. "They're very, very serious."

For years, the 51-year-old TV personality chortled to colleagues about Lane's troubles, as they appeared on PhillyGossip.com and in the New York Post's Page 6 gossip column.

Perhaps Mendte's greatest glee came last Jan. 7 when he announced his rival's downfall in a KYW statement: "We have concluded that it would be impossible for Alycia to continue to report the news when she, herself, has become the focus of so many news stories."

Yesterday, the feds confirmed that Mendte himself was the source of "so many news stories" in the Daily News and PhillyGossip.com - and possibly the New York Post - that had ridiculed his co-anchor of four years.

And that was just as Lane, dubbed "anchorbabe" and the "Latina bombshell," had suspected. Mendte had obtained her passwords to access her e-mail accounts, authorities said.

FBI special agent in charge Janice Fedarcyk said, "It's important to recognize that people have a right to have their most personal and privileged communications protected over the phone, through the mail and through technology."

"This case, however, went well beyond reading someone's e-mail," said Magid. "It's no different than someone stealing your locked briefcase, containing information from your lawyer, prying it open and helping themselves to the contents."

Mendte's attorney, Michael A. Schwartz, said the charges "should not come as a surprise to anyone.

"We have continually said from day one that Larry has cooperated with investigators and will continue to cooperate and will accept full responsibility for his actions," he added.

He is expected to plead guilty at a hearing, possibly the week of Aug. 4, according to sources close to the investigation. He faces up to six months in jail under advisory sentencing guidelines. The maximum penalty is five years in federal prison.

The obsessive Mendte logged into two of Lane's personal e-mail accounts as often as 12 times a day between Jan. 1 and May 28, according to the one-count information filed in U.S. District Court yesterday.

Then, he allegedly dispensed intimate details to the Daily News of Lane's late-night confrontation with undercover New York police, in which she allegedly called a policewoman a slur, as well as confidential attorney-client communications about her lawsuits.

These details then appeared on PhillyGossip.com, a blog written by Dan Gross, and later in the Daily News.

Asked if Mendte supplied information about Lane, Gross said, "I don't discuss whether anyone is, or is not, a source of mine."

Asked if he cooperated in the FBI investigation, Gross said, "Absolutely not. I have never been contacted by any investigator in the case."

Sources close to the probe said that investigators do not believe that the Daily News knew that the information about Lane was stolen.

KYW had no comment on yesterday's federal charge.

Apparently, Mendte never thought he would get caught.

But he has not appeared on air since May 29 when FBI Agents Brian Herrick and Jason Stroud seized his computers and found e-mails from Lane's Yahoo! account, one from March 2006 and two from June 2006.

Lane's sexy bikini-clad photos on a beach, one of which appeared on Page 6 of the New York Post, were also found on Mendte's computer. Lane originally e-mailed a photo to a friend.

Asked if Mendte sent the bikini photos to the New York Post, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said, "I don't know if he sent them. They were on his computer. I would argue that [they were sent to the newspaper] at trial."

Mendte used computers at his Chestnut Hill home, his vacation home and his office at KYW, as well as a Union League computer once, to access Lane's personal e-mail accounts at Apple Computer and Yahoo!, according to the information.

In a recent lawsuit against KYW, Lane contended that Mendte was "obsessively jealous" of her since 2004, especially after learning she earned about $800,000 a year, more money than he.

Mendte was fired from CBS3 on June 23, after co-anchoring the news with Lane at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. from September 2003 until Lane was dismissed.

Jonathan Walters, attorney for the local chapter of American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said that Lane's arbitration about her firing is scheduled for Sept. 22.

Lane also has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the New York Police Department for wrongful arrest.

Asked if Lane would file a civil lawsuit against Mendte, Rosen said that he would not rule out anything.

That Mendte would "read her most personal and privileged e-mails," including those with her lawyer, and then use them "to portray her in a false light, cost her her job and career and harm her personally and professionally - that's what he has to answer for," said Rosen. "She's destroyed and I want to restore her reputation."*