Judge Stays Alycia Lane Case Against CBS, Larry Mendte

The “Latina Bombshell” is back! You may remember that former CBS3 anchor Alycia Lane filed a $15 million libel lawsuit against CBS and onetime co-anchor Larry Mendte, currently a Philly Post contributor. That trial is currently scheduled to start in mid-March. Last week, after being unable to appear in court thanks to some medical condition (she gave the judge a doctor’s note), Lane showed up to testify at an evidentiary hearing to respond to accusations of spoliation, a fancy legal term that means destroying or suppressing evidence. In this case, the evidence in question is her laptop.

On Friday, gossip girl Marnie Hall posted a video report on philly.com, where she speculated that if Judge Allen Tereshko decided that Lane had purposefully destroyed evidence, this could lead to a dismissal. “No way, no how,” says prominent Center City attorney Chuck Peruto. “There’s no way that the judge would throw out the case if there’s evidence that the computer was destroyed. He would just give the jury special instruction that they could consider that, but that they don’t have to.” In any event, citing “the volume and complexities of the issues”, the judge issued an indefinite stay earlier this week, meaning the March trial date is in question.

In case you lost track, Lane has been working for NBC in Los Angeles, where a local media blog recently described her as “an afterthought.”