When David Letterman talked about the “creepy things” he’d done for which he was being blackmailed, he mentioned “that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.” Dave was only married earlier this year, and he has a five year-old son. He’s supposedly been with his now-wife for over 20 years, meaning he was cheating on her when he hooked up with women he worked with.

The first woman revealed to have been one of Dave’s on-set girlfriends was his former assistant, Stephanie Birkitt. Birkitt’s live-in boyfriend, 48 Hours producer Robert “Joe” Halderman, has been identified as the man behind the extortion plot. Halderman was arrested on Friday and is now out on bail. He plead not guilty to the charges.

Apparently Dave had at least one other affair with a staff member. It’s worth noting that all of these relationships are said to have taken place before Dave’s longterm girlfriend, Regina Lasko, had their son, Harry, five years ago. People Magazine has what’s likely to be the “official” version of Dave’s other relationship, with an unnamed staffer in the late 90s. They’re careful to note that the woman wasn’t an underling and was definitely not an intern. That’s not to say that Dave didn’t have a relationship with an intern, though, just that this woman wasn’t one. Given how complimentary this article is toward Letterman, I would guess that it’s straight from Dave’s camp:

A former Late Show with David Letterman staffer tells PEOPLE that the talk show host had a sexual relationship with one of the show’s employees in the late 1990s.

The source says the relationship occurred before Stephanie Birkitt, 34, the woman at the center of the Letterman scandal, worked on the show and involved a different female staffer.

“I’m not surprised this came out,” the former staffer tells PEOPLE of Letterman’s admission Thursday night that he had “had sex with women who work for me on this show.”

“Even the interns knew stuff like that was going on,” says the source.

The former staffer says that Letterman, 62, carried on a sexual relationship with one of his “peers, a woman close to him, not an intern.”

At the time the relationship didn’t raise too many eyebrows, adds the source. “It wasn’t a big deal because he wasn’t married. And we heard he had a girlfriend (Regina Lasko, whom Letterman married in March 2009), but she never came around, so it just wasn’t a big deal.”

“He wasn’t considered a sex symbol or anything. In fact, off the air, he came across a lot older than he was.”

Various former colleagues say Letterman could be both aloof and charming – but was always extremely private.

“David is a perfectionist, but his cameramen and other staffers respect him and are loyal to him,” says one source. “People on his staff genuinely like him.”

Another close source, who has a long history with the Late Show, says that the program’s grueling schedule – 15-hour workdays are typical – helped breed inter-office hookups.

“In politics it’s the same thing,” says the source. “People who live it, eat it, breathe it … [It’s] not some sort of predatory, ‘Let’s hire beautiful women so we can feast on them’ kind of thing. That’s just not the way it works.”

The former staffer adds of Letterman, “He never acted inappropriate with any of the female staff. He was very kind, and I never recall anyone saying anything at all bad about him.”

[From People]

TMZ has a first-person account from a woman who claimed to have been an intern at The Late Show and a co-ed when she had a relationship with Dave for about in the early 90s. She makes it sound as if Dave did nothing inappropriate, and that she was genuinely fond of him. It’s hard to tell if this is accurate, but the woman was willing to put her name out there, and she does have some writing and production credits listed on IMDB. TMZ also has photos of her, but not with Dave.

A woman who interned for David Letterman in the early 90’s says she was one of Letterman’s top 10 — on the staff.

Holly Hester tells TMZ the internship was her first job in TV. At the time she was a student at NYU. Hester says during a hiatus, Dave called her up and asked her to the movies. It began a series of secret dates, with no one on the staff having any idea. She says, “I was madly in love with him at the time. I would have married him. He was hilarious.”

Hester says Dave ended it after a year — she says he told her the age span was just too great.

[From TMZ]

It sounds like the guy was a kind of serial monogamist with younger staff members over the years. Although it does bring up some ethical questions it’s not like he’s claiming to be a paragon of virtue like some politicians. He wasn’t married, and he only has to answer to his girlfriend, the women he was involved with, and maybe his employer.

As much as the People story sounds like official spin, it’s probably accurate that Dave is well liked by his staff and that he had some known but low-key relationships with women he worked with. The intern thing sounds creepy, as Dave himself noted. He was in his mid 40s in the early 90s, but if he was single and she was a 20-something college student it’s not like it was illegal. It sounded consensual, but it still could have constituted sexual harassment.

There are said to be rumblings at CBS that following Dave’s confession they may have to address the issue of potential sexual harassment at the Late Show. Dave works for his own production company, Worldwide Pants, and not CBS, though. Worldwide Pants has said through a spokesperson that Letterman hasn’t violated their company harassment policy and “no one has ever raised a complaint against him.” If anyone comes forward and says that they felt threatened by Letterman or that their job was jeopardized, then this story will change. Dave has worked on The Late Show for 16 years. It seems like we would have heard something by now if he was somehow preying on staff members. As it is, Dave handled this very well and I doubt there will be much backlash. His ratings are high and he’ll weather this scandal.

Letterman is shown on 8/27/09. Credit: PRPhotos