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An unintentionally hilarious interview took place on the Today Show this morning. Ann Curry interviewed accused David Letterman extortionist Robert “Joe” Halderman’s lawyer, Gerald L. Shargel. To say that Shargel is not good on camera is an understatement. He appeared confused, unprepared, and shockingly incoherent. He relied on a lot of lawyer speak where they speak a lot of words and then you realize they actually didn’t say a damn thing. It was incredibly awkward and almost laugh-out-loud funny. And since I want Halderman to go to jail, I’m pretty pleased with his brilliant selection.

While by now nearly everyone has heard David Letterman’s side of the story – delivered in a 10-minute serio-comic Late Show monologue Thursday that seemed to come out of nowhere – not much has come from alleged extortionist Robert “Joe” Halderman, until now. Not that much was made of the opportunity.

Appearing with Ann Curry on Monday’s Today show, Halderman’s attorney, Gerald L. Shargel, repeatedly promised that evidence would come out at trial that will exonerate his client, who is accused by New York prosecutors of trying to extort $2 million from the CBS host. But pressed for any information that might clear Halderman, Shargel offered nothing beyond further promises.

“You can’t take at face value what the prosecutor has said,” said Shargel, who disputed Curry’s suggestion that he faced an uphill battle in the legal war. At one point Shargel, without further explanation, said, “The prosecutor’s case … in so many ways makes no sense.”

When Curry pointed out that his client had cashed a $2 million check and had been recorded on a detective’s wire, Shargel’s response was to say, “I’ve been at this a long time.” He also talked up Halderman’s 20-year career as a respected TV producer and mentioned the name of Dan Rather, though it was not clear how the former CBS News anchor is relevant to this case.

Still, Curry wanted information that might balance one’s view of Halderman. Shargel instead criticized Letterman for being a “master manipulator of the media,” prompting Curry to tell him, “I’m giving you access to media this morning and you are not giving your client’s side of the story.”

Shargel did say that he’s only been on this case for four days, and he’s still investigating it.

On his professional Web site, Shargel, a 1969 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, is described as “a member of the New York Bar since 1969 [who] limits his practice to the defense of serious criminal cases. Over the past several decades, Mr. Shargel has handled numerous high profile cases at both the trial and appellate level. Cases typically include a broad array of white collar and non-white collar crimes.”

[From People]

Oh I laughed and I laughed. It’s good to chuckle, but a true, deep belly laugh is to be cherished indeed. To be fair, it was an evil, contemptuous laugh, but it soothed my soul just the same. Robert “Joe” Halderman, you sure know how to make good decisions. My favorite part of the interview is where Shargel basically says Halderman didn’t try to extort Letterman because he had a great reputation in the television business. Which, by the way, Halderman very much does not. Here’s an article all about how much everyone who worked with Halderman disliked him and isn’t surprised at all that he’s done something so criminally assholeish.

People normally either takes a neutral or suck-uppy tone in their articles. It’s funny to see them being so passive aggressively hostile. Really, as funny as Shargel’s terrible interview is, he’s got a problem I’ve always wondered about in terms of defense attorneys. What do you say when it is 100% clear your client is guilty, yet they won’t admit it? In heinous crimes like murder you can drag in a bunch of experts to B.S. about how it’s not really the guy’s fault that he did what he did. But what do you say when your client tries to extort $2 million and it’s as clear as day? No one gives a rip what Halderman’s reasoning was. No amount of sadness or issues in his life could possibly be relevant here. So there’s nothing to blame to try to distract the jury.

In a way it makes sense that Shargel didn’t know what to say. The question is, why did he go on TV to not say it?