Blasts from the Past

Ex-KFMB Channel 8 TV weathercaster and part-time Mission Beach stand-up comic Larry Mendte has been making the wrong kind of headlines in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia lately. Mendte, who departed San Diego to work in Chicago after KFMB fired him in 1992 and who later anchored the syndicated Access Hollywood in L.A., is facing federal charges that he hacked into the email account of his sexy co-anchor about 537 times over a five-month period beginning in January. Mendte, who co-anchored Philadelphia’s KYW-TV news with Alycia Lane for more than four years, allegedly used the information to plant damaging stories about Lane with a gossip columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Mendte’s motive, according to Lane’s attorney Paul Rosen, was envy; Lane, dubbed the “Latina Bombshell” by Philadelphia media, was making $780,000, $100,000 more than Mendte. “There’s no question that it was out of jealousy,” Rosen told local reporters. “Her star was climbing, while his was not climbing.… His conduct was designed to undermine her.” Mendte allegedly circulated information about Lane’s own mini-scandals, which included a late-night scuffle with a New York City policeman. (Lane was fired in January; Mendte in May.) He is expected to plead guilty when he appears in federal court on August 22.… Another former San Diegan is also in hot water back East. Sean-Michael Lyons, also known as Michael Stevens Lyons, 45, has pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender after he moved from California to Sussex County in New Jersey. In 1985 he was convicted by a San Diego County superior court jury of ten counts of lewd acts with boys between the ages of 6 and 13 and attempted child molestation. He was sentenced to 12 years in state prison. Lyons was a 22-year-old counselor at the Santa Margarita YMCA when the crimes occurred. New Jersey authorities said that Lyons was a pastor at the Damien of Molokai Chapel of the Reformed Catholic Church, which he operated out of his house in a section of Vernon. The church said he had been suspended from clerical duties; it is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.