Mendte could push either way

Michael Bradley, who runs the Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day parade, remembers the phone call from CBS3 anchor Larry Mendte on May 29.

Mendte, an advocate for Irish causes, "wanted to tell me that something bad was going to come out," Bradley said. "He wanted to apologize 'if my name is going to bring shame to you and the organization.' "

Mendte made similar calls that Thursday to the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation and other charities he has worked with.

That was the day FBI agents showed up at the Chestnut Hill home that Mendte, 51, shares with his wife, Fox29 anchor Dawn Stensland, to seize his computer. The FBI was investigating allegations that, for about two years, Mendte had snooped on the e-mails of his onetime coanchor, Alycia Lane, and fed gossip about her to the media.

"I told him I didn't accept the apology because it wasn't necessary," Bradley said, recalling "what tremendous character that showed."

Mendte was fired June 23 after CBS3 found a keystroke-capture program - which records typed information, including passwords - on a computer at the station. The FBI has been analyzing both computers. Under federal law, it is illegal to read another person's e-mail without permission, though people are rarely sent to prison for the crime.

Many have tried to reconcile the allegations with Mendte's persona as an aggressive journalist, a champion of charitable causes, and a workaholic who was arguably the most visible news anchor in Philadelphia.

To others, particularly those who worked with him, Mendte was territorial and obsessed with Emmy awards and "face time," routinely "big-footing" colleagues from high-profile stories. In a defamation lawsuit against CBS, Lane alleges that Mendte was "obsessively jealous" of her success.

When Lane was offered a contract with a salary greater than his, Mendte considered her popularity a "threat to his position," contends the suit, which does not name Mendte as a defendant. (Lane and Mendte were thought to have made $700,000 to $900,000 a year.)

Lane was fired Jan. 1 after landing in the gossip pages for several incidents, capped by her December arrest on charges of hitting a New York City police officer. The charges were reduced and are to be dropped next month if she has no further involvement with authorities.

Mendte's attorney, Michael A. Schwartz, said Mendte would not be interviewed for this article. Schwartz has said he and Mendte "continue to work with the federal authorities and hope to reach a prompt resolution of this matter. I fully expect Larry to be able to continue with his broadcasting career."

Giselle Fernandez, who was paired with Mendte in 1996 as the first hosts of the Burbank, Calif.-based syndicated show Access Hollywood, said in an interview that she was "not surprised he is in this situation." While calling Mendte "a good reporter," she found him "very difficult and disingenuous to work with."

"There's some competitive way about him that gets the best of him," she said, adding that "to me, there was always a frightening duality about him. He was great to my face and manipulative and destructive behind my back. I found him very hurtful. He did send me a letter when he left, apologizing to me. That was the Jekyll side of him apologizing for Mr. Hyde."

Schwartz said Mendte had worked with Fernandez "for only a short period of time, almost 12 years ago. Larry respects Giselle's work and is disappointed and surprised by her comments, which have nothing to do with the pending federal investigation."

Mendte grew up in Lansdowne, the youngest of the five children of Katherine "Kitty" Mendte (who died in 2002) and J. Robert Mendte (who died in 1996). Bob Mendte was a Center City marketing man who managed the 1976 presidential campaign of longtime friend Harold Stassen.

As a youngster, Mendte has told interviewers, he had little confidence and was picked on at St. Philomena School. He later helped raise money for St. Phil's, said Suzanne Hall, who heads the alumni association.

Mendte has said that as a boy he enjoyed getting lost and having his name mentioned over the loudspeaker. The best place, he told the Philadelphia Daily News, was the boardwalk in Ocean City, N.J., because you also got ice cream.

After attending West Chester State College, Mendte worked in radio and broke into TV in 1980 at a small station in Eureka, Calif.

After a string of reporting jobs, he won a weekend anchoring job in 1984 at New York's WABC. He quit two years later to become a weathercaster in San Diego. He also did stand-up comedy in Los Angeles.

In 1991, he landed in Chicago as a reporter/anchor at WBBM, where he met Stensland when she joined the station as a reporter. She followed him to Philadelphia in 1997. They married in 2000 and have two sons, 4 years old and 22 months old. Mendte also has a son and daughter from his first marriage.

"Larry is the best man I know," Stensland wrote in an e-mail statement. "He's an awesome husband and father. I hope people remember the unprecedented and tireless work Larry has done for broadcasting, charities and his hometown of Philadelphia over the past 11 years. I love and support my man."

It was in Chicago that Mendte flourished. An imposing 6-foot-3, he strode around the WBBM set as he worked, a radical change from traditional deskbound anchors.

For a story about the execution of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, he sat on the gurney in the execution chamber.

With the help of a fire department, he staged a house fire for a series called "Burning Down the House." Backed by the Talking Heads song of the same name, it featured a quick-cut montage of fire and firefighters set to the beat. At one point, Mendte crawled out of the burning building wearing a firefighter's coat.

His 1994 expose of felons who drove school buses led to a change in Illinois law.

Along the way, the Chicago newspapers dubbed him "Scary Larry." In its media column, the Chicago Tribune carried a weekly "Mendte Report," chronicling his feats.

"He liked being the lightning rod," said Robert Feder, longtime television critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. "He liked thumbing his nose at authority."

Jim Edwards, Mendte's longtime producer in Chicago who said he was "shocked" when he heard of the FBI investigation, remembers him as a "fun-loving guy, a hard worker, and a great storyteller."

Mendte was thick-skinned, believing that his Emmys drowned out the critics, Feder said. He "started winning awards," Feder said. "He'd walk home with armsful."

After a few years in Chicago, Mendte began looking toward Philadelphia. Early talks with WCAU, which became NBC10, didn't pan out. In 1996, he signed with

Access Hollywood

, the tabloid entertainment show.

By early 1997, after his first season, NBC10 was on the rise, buoyed by the network's sterling prime-time lineup (ER, Seinfeld). News director Steve Doerr had anchor Renee Chenault, sports director Vai Sikahema, and meteorologist Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz. Doerr, now general manager of the ABC affiliate in Providence, R.I., said he had found in Mendte "the last piece of a dream team."

For a time, NBC10 closed the ratings gap with WPVI's Action News. "He's as hard a worker as you will ever see," Doerr said of Mendte, ticking off qualities such as "bright, funny, quick-witted."

"After his family, TV is his love," Doerr said. "It's his passion."

Sikahema said he felt bad for Mendte, whom he considers a friend. "I may be a little biased in what I say because I like him so much," he said. "I hope he will land on his feet."

Chenault (now Chenault-Fattah) and Schwartz declined to comment on Mendte.

John Bolaris, who worked with Mendte at NBC10 and now is chief meteorologist at Fox29, recalled Mendte's dark side. In 2001, while Bolaris was catching grief for predicting a huge snowstorm that didn't materialize, Mendte confronted him.

Mendte "calls me into a room and says, 'How dare you destroy what I've created here?' I said, 'What you have created here?' He said, 'I mean we.' "

Bolaris said Mendte later apologized.

Bolaris, one of the few local TV personalities who agreed to speak publicly about Mendte, said that if Mendte had been spying on Lane, "I hope he gets what he deserves. I also think he owes a big-time apology to Alycia Lane, the viewers, his family" and his station.

After Mendte left NBC10 in 2003, he partnered with Lane at CBS3, then known as KYW, where ratings also rose. So did the number of his regional Emmys - awards for which local news anchors can, and often do, submit their own entries. In the business, it's considered both a matter of ego and a way to honor behind-the-scenes staffers.

Mendte has won more than 70 regional Emmys, for special reports on such topics as Alex Scott, the young cancer patient; Cpl. Stephen McGowan of Newark, Del., who distributed Beanie Babies to Iraqi children before he was killed; and the Eternal Flame in Washington Square, extinguished for a decade until his campaign to have it repaired.

Mendte's legal issues don't diminish him in the minds of some of those he has profiled, including Rocco Fiorentino of Voorhees, founder of the Little Rock Foundation, an organization of parents who have children with visual impairment.

Mendte "took a special interest in everything we did" and "took our events to a new level," Fiorentino said.

Bobbie McGowan, the soldier's mother, said Mendte "took the time to spend time with me" and wept with her while he reported stories on her son's death in 2006.

For now, Mendte has abandoned his public schedule, once filled with personal appearances, and is staying at home with his young sons.

Jay Scott of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation said that he had spoken to Mendte recently, and that he was doing "all right" as he awaited word on his fate.

"Larry has done a lot of things for the community," Scott said. "People should remember that."