Former Philadelphia news anchor Alycia Lane doesn’t appear “ready to make nice” with disgraced former Philadelphia news anchor Larry Mendte despite Mendte turning to face Lane and issuing a tortured apology to her during his sentencing hearing for hacking into her email accounts yesterday.
“I am sorry for what I did,” said Mendte, who had been addressing U.S. District Judge Mary A. Mc-Laughlin during his sentencing hearing but turned around to speak directly to Lane.
Lane – who was also fired during the string of bizarre, tabloid-fired scandals that engulfed the Philadelphia TV newsroom – sat next to her lawyer, Paul Rosen, in the first row of the court gallery as Mendte spoke.
“I know what I did and I know it was wrong,” he told her.
[...]
But Rosen told a packed news conference afterwards that the apology didn’t go nearly far enough.
“I don’t think she will ever accept that apology until her life is restored from what he did to her,” Rosen said. “What he did was methodical, intentional, deceptive, mean-spirited and took every chance he could to try and have her face incarceration for a crime she didn’t commit.”
Mendte received three years probation, 6 months spent cooling his heels at his Chestnut Hill home under house arrest, and 250 hours community service.
He was ordered to stay away from Lane, undergo computer monitoring and a psychological evaluation, and to pay a $5,000 fine.
Hopefully “computer monitoring” means he will be monitored. We know how well it goes when Mendte is the one monitoring computers.
Mendte’s wife, FOX29 anchor Dawn Stensland, bawled as she spoke out in defense of her weird-ass hubby in court.
Stensland testified about her husband’s character and the 70 letters of support sent to the judge. She rejected the public portrayal of him “as some kind of a Jekyll and Hyde character.”
“He’s just a man, a good man, a very good man who did a bad thing and he is sorry,” said Stensland.
“A day doesn’t go by that he doesn’t say to me, ‘Dawn, I’m so sorry,’ ” said Stensland, the only person to speak for Mendte. Her husband, the father of her two toddlers, is not just “sorry to me and for what he did to our family and to the community . . . he’s sorry for what he did to you, Alycia.”
Stensland looked straight at Lane and continued, weeping: “I want you to know, Alycia, how sorry he is, and I hope that you can look into my eyes and know that in our home there is nothing but sadness and sorrow over this.”
When Stensland stepped down from the stand and headed to her gallery seat, Mendte stood up from the defense table to embrace, then kiss, his wife.
After the hearing ended, Stensland said that she made eye contact with Lane during that exchange, but when asked about Lane’s reaction, the anchor said, “You’ll have to ask her.”
Like That? You'll Probably Like These.
- Larry Mendte Pleads Guilty
- Report: Mendte Tried Spying On Second CBS3 Coworker
- PSA: Analog Broadcasting Is No More In Philadelphia (The ‘Off The Air’ Post)
- Philadelphia’s CBS3 Caves To Obama Blacklist Threat
- Report: Philly Machines Rigged For Obama / Poll Watchers Ejected
