Former KYW-TV anchor Larry Mendte’s sentence consists of six months of electronically monitored house arrest, three years probation, 250 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine.

The judge also ordered Mendte to stay away from his former co-anchor, Alycia Lane, and continue psychological counseling. The court called for monitoring of his personal computer by federal authorities so he can’t install software or hardware that enable him to read another person’s e-mail.

Mendte hacked into Lane’s e-mails starting in March 2006 and continued to do so after Lane was fired by the station in January. Among the 500 e-mails Mendte read just this year were confidential ones with Lane’s lawyers.

Intercepting e-mail is a crime under the federal Wiretap Act. It’s no different than illegally tapping someone’s phone.

Did the punishment fit the crime in this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Her underwear.

Derriford Hospital in Plymouth found out about Sheena McMillan’s side business when its e-mail monitoring program picked up one headlined “Naughty Knicks,” according to The Sun. Knicks is short for “knickers,” the British term for panties.

Potential buyers had a choice: 20 pounds ($32) for clean underwear and 23 pounds ($37) for dirty.

A spokeswoman for the Nursing and Midwifery Council said the messages were clearly inappropriate because buyers would have realized the knickers were being sold by a registered nurse. McMillan could be barred from hospital premises.

McMillan argues whatever she did has nothing to do with her ability to be a nurse.

What do you think? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

For people who’ve expressed that regret, now there’s help.

Gmail has introduced something called Mail Goggles. It’s a check to make sure someone really wants to send that e-mail they’ve just drafted.

The message that pops up when Goggles is enabled says, “It’s that time of day. Gmail aims to help you in many ways. Are you sure you want to send this? Answer some simple math problems to verify.”

Goggles’ default setting makes it active only late night on weekends — apparently aimed more at personal e-mails than workplace ones. However, anyone can adjust when it’s active, in case more impulsive e-mailing occurs between the hours of 9 and 5.

You can find out more about Mail Goggles here.

Have any of your employees sent e-mails they wish they hadn’t?

If you ever find, as an HR pro, that you have to send an unfortunate e-mail to senior management about upcoming layoffs, you might want to double, triple and quadruple check the “to” field on the message.

Media agency Carat was struggling and planned a major restructuring of its operations, including layoffs.

Those always awkward conversations with those being let go will be even more awkward because the entire agency received an e-mail regarding the terminations, mistakenly sent by its top HR executive.

And the e-mail didn’t just announce the layoffs; it included PowerPoint and Word documents full of “message” points on how people should be told they’d be out of work.

When the e-mail was sent out my mistake, the IT department pulled it back. But it was apparently too late, because copies were obtained by Advertising Age.

To make matters worse, as is the case too often today, the euphemism “right-sizing” was used in the memos to describe the lay-offs.

Chances are the employees who quickly opened the documents before IT called the e-mail back didn’t consider the possibility of losing their jobs as “right-sized” for them.

There’s no word on one Carat employee’s fate, Chief People Officer Rose Zory, who was responsible for mistakenly sending out the e-mail.

While this is a pretty outrageous e-mail blunder, it won’t be considered the worst one ever having to do with lay-offs. Not long ago, RadioShack dismissed 400 people via e-mail.

Do you have a story about a workplace e-mail blunder, particularly one dealing with HR? Let us know about it by sending us a Comment below.

Did Little Mikey of LIFE cereal fame die when he mixed Pop Rocks with soda pop? Of course not. It’s one of the most famous – and strange – urban legends out there.

Ever wonder if employees at your company are spending precious time spreading similar dubious material in e-mail chains?

It’s a time waster, but otherwise probably harmless to your company.

But that’s not the same when it comes to a police officer spreading an urban legend via official law enforcement e-mail.

A policeman in Oxfordshire, England, alerted hundreds of families to the danger-drug Strawberry Meth – despite the fact that it doesn’t exist.

The false alarm came after the office sent an e-mail via a special system connecting police and schools without checking with colleagues first, according to news reports in Britain.

The old myth claims kids are drawn to the fruit flavoring in the drug, also known as Strawberry Quick.

The officer was forced to apologize, and the Oxfordshire police have promised this sort of thing will never happen again.

It’s good the police have stopped this officer in his tracks. Next, we’d expect he’d be warning the good citizens of Oxfordshire of the acute dangers of the deadly chemical dihydrogen monoxide – better known as H20, or water.

Once upon a time, snooping on co-workers consisted of listening in on conversations, in person or on the phone, or intercepting written documents. Now, in the Internet age, you can add opening others’ e-mail messages to the list.

A Philadelphia TV station has suspended its top anchor indefinitely pending an investigation into whether he opened hundreds of e-mails of a former co-anchor.

KYW-TV anchor Larry Mendte allegedly opened former colleague Alycia Lane’s private e-mail over many months, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mendte’s potential troubles don’t end at work. The FBI is investigating whether he spread gossip about Lane to the media.

Lane isn’t a stranger to controversy. She was fired earlier this year after an altercation with a New York City police officer. She faced charges, but under an agreement, they are expected to be dismissed later this year.

Before that, Lane made the gossip pages in an incident involving cable sports anchor Rich Eisen. Eisen’s wife chastised her in a scathing e-mail for sending Eisen photos of Lane wearing a bikini.

No one knows how  New York newspapers got a copy of that e-mail.

Is this much ado about nothing – just a media spat between celebrities? Hardly.

Serious business

Intercepting e-mail is a crime under the federal Wiretap Act. It’s no different than illegally tapping someone’s phone.

And a federal court has interpreted broadly what constitutes an e-mail intercept. Some had tried to define intercept as “in transit.” But the First Circuit court said the Wiretap Act does prohibit viewing e-mails that are in temporary storage before they are delivered.

A former prosecutor quoted by The Inquirer speculates that the feds are pursuing the Mendte case because he could be held up as an example.

Punishment would be determined by the economic loss to the injured party. 

In this case, Lane’s attorneys may argue that Mendte was trying to damage her career or affect the outcome of her lawsuit against the station after it fired her.

There’s no word yet on the potential legal exposure for the TV station.

Does your company have a policy on employee snooping? Does it cover electronic communication? Let us know about it.