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Larry Mendte: “I Wish I Never Met Alycia Lane”

Larry Mendte, the former Philadelphia main anchor turned subject of a federal investigation, has written his story for Philadelphia magazine, describing the "self-inflicted" torpedo that sank his Philly news career, "a tragic event that destroys the life you once knew and forces you to build a new one." Mendte describes the life of a flashy anchor married to another flashy anchor who were doing very, very well:

Our combined salaries were well over a million dollars a year. We lived with our beautiful children in a beautiful house and enjoyed a worry-free, beautiful life. Until “it” knocked on our front door — along with the FBI.

The FBI, of course, had come calling over the email scandal that ultimately cost Mendte his job. Of that, Mendte writes:

Alycia Lane was (and still is) suing me. (There is no money to be had, so the suit seems purely vindictive.) Her attorney was quoted in the paper saying, “We don’t want to leave him with a penny.” The lawsuit is ongoing, but it is only my children who can be hurt now. I wish she would see that. I, like many other people, wish I never met Alycia Lane.

Mendte goes into great detail about the life of an anchor cut off from anchoring, and how he hit the jackpot thanks to the lottery. He also explains his decision to return to local news as a commentator at the revamped and heavily criticized WPIX in New York. "These commentaries give me a new way to fight for what’s right."