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David Letterman's cue-card holder Tony Mendez fired for assault

The incident took place on Oct. 9 before the taping of that Tuesday's show.

By Veronica Linares
David Letterman. UPI/John Angelillo
David Letterman. UPI/John Angelillo | License Photo

NEW YORK, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Tony Mendez, the man tasked with holding the cue cards on the Late Show with ­David Letterman has allegedly been fired for attacking staff writer Bill Scheft.

According to the New York Post, the incident took place on Oct. 9 before the taping of that Tuesday's show.

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"[Scheft] encroaches on my work," Mendez explained. "He tells me what to do, and I have to say, 'I know what I'm doing.' And a lot of time when I am making changes [to the cards], he'll stand there looking over my shoulder, and he'll say something like, 'Put that on top,' because he got an idea."

"As Dave is giving me a change, Bill will start yelling the same change -- but his own version," he continued, "because he'll think it's funnier. And I have to say, 'One at a time, I can't hear anybody!'"

Mendez went on to say that on the eve of the incident Scheft said something that made him snap, prompting Letterman to scowl at him: "Tony, your sour disposition isn't helping."

"You're the one who has the sour disposition, mother [expletive]'' Mendez snapped back.

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"That's how we talk," he said of the exchange with the host, adding that he later realized Scheft "was trying to create a wedge between" the two. In turn, the next morning he came into the studio and "grabbed him by the shirt."

"He was very surprised. He didn't say a word. He was cowering, his eyes were real big, he probably peed a little bit on his pants," Mendez recounted.

"I'm the first one to say I should have never put my hands on him, but I never hit him. I just grabbed him and got my face in his face," he said.

Two separate sources have said Mendez threw the 57-year-old writer against a wall.

After the incident, Mendez was kicked out of the theater and the following Monday he was "officially terminated." Insiders say the show offered to pay for his salary and benefits until Letterman's show comes to an end sometime next year.

"Dave had nothing to do with this at all," Mendez said Friday. "He was oblivious to my problem with Bill Scheft. Even Bill was probably oblivious... But now that CBS is involved, they probably said to Dave and other people, 'Because of what he did, he can't be there. Because we're CBS and have zero tolerance for that kind of stuff.'"

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Either way, Mendez is leaving the late night talk show with no regrets.

"I don't regret things in life," he said. "You do some things, and then you learn from them."

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