Dave Herman arrested over young girl

Dave Herman arrested over young girl. Herman, who tried to set up a sex romp with girl, 6, was taken into custody by federal authorities Thursday in St. Croix after a yearlong sting.

Retired rock radio host Dave Herman went from revolutionary deejay to shocked jock Thursday after he was charged with trying to arrange sex with a 6-year-old girl in the Virgin Islands.

Herman, longtime host of “The Dave Herman Rock and Roll Morning Show” on the defunct WNEW-FM in New York, was arrested at the airport in St. Croix after brokering a deal to have an encounter with a fictitious and “incredibly sexy” young girl, according to a criminal complaint.

Unknown to Herman, the 36-year-old woman willing to let him have sex with her daughter “Lexi” at his St. Croix vacation home was actually a Homeland Security agent chatting him up online since November, the complaint said.

“I find girls that age incredibly sexy, soft, and their innocence is also a huge turn-on for me,” investigators said the 77-year-old Airmont, Rockland County, resident unwittingly told investigators who set up the sting. “Age 6 is the perfect time to start her being loved that way.”

The host — who once received on-air visits from the likes of John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Who and the Eagles — planned to liquor up the little girl so she wouldn’t be nervous, prosecutors said.

He also promised not to hurt her, though he admitted he might have to be “forceful,” investigators said.

After a slew of failed attempts, Herman bought a pair of plane tickets for the mother and daughter to fly from LaGuardia Airport to meet him in St. Croix, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But instead of being greeted at the airport Thursday by his young victim, investigators were waiting to cuff Herman. He is charged with transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

For a quarter century, from 1972 to 1998, he was one of the defining personalities on New York rock radio.

He was a cornerstone of the legendary team on WNEW-FM (102.7 FM), which started as a free-form rock station and gradually evolved into the ultimate home of rock radio in New York.

All the rockers of that era passed through ‘NEW-FM, from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Who and the Eagles.

Herman, as the morning host from 1972 to 1982, 1986 to 1991 and then again from 1996 until the station dissolved into chaos in 1998, was one of the station’s best-known voices.

He had a low-key style along with impassioned opinions and eclectic musical taste. He would often sprinkle in non-rock music as well as his views on matters like the Vietnam War, which he opposed.

He started in radio in Asbury Park, then in 1968 won a contest to become the first rock deejay on WMMR in Philadelphia. He called his show there “The Marconi Experiment,” alluding to the original developer of radio.

In 1970, ABC recruited him to come to New York and join the fledgling WABC-FM. That station would evolve into WPLJ, and some reports say Herman suggested those call letters – an allusion to a popular 1950s rhythm & blues song called “White Port Lemon Juice.”

WABC-FM was to be the flagship for “The Love Network,” and Herman did shows both for the national network and the local station. He started on Feb. 21, 1970.

WABC decided to end the “Love Network” experiment in 1972, and Herman left the station when his two-year contract was up.

A month later he was hired as a part-timer at WNEW-FM, and he was upgraded to full-time morning host on May 22, 1972.

During his time there he interviewed most of the top rockers, and in 1975 he launched a series of syndicated shows called “Dave Herman’s Conversations,” where he talked with people like Springsteen and Mick Jagger for two hours.

WNEW-FM moved him to nights in 1982, then to 10 a.m., before he was reinstated as morning host on Nov. 12, 1986.

He stayed there another five years before WNEW-FM entered its famously tumultuous 1990s. He was brought back as morning host in 1996 for the “Classic Rock with Classic Jocks” format, then fired along with Scott Muni in November 1998.

The station at the time had decided to build itself around Opie and Anthony, part of whose shtick was to ridicule the departing hosts as fossils whose time had passed.

Soon after Herman left, Opie and Anthony had his estranged wife Libby on their show, mocking his romantic skills and calling him a “deadbeat Dad.”

Herman soon filed a $10 million lawsuit against WNEW-FM’s parent CBS Corp., claiming it had failed to deliver his severance pay and that the Opie and Anthony segment included “false and defamatory” statements about him.

After leaving WNEW-FM, Herman became program director of an Internet talk service called eYada.com. While it showed some growth, Herman said at the time, “It did not survive the Internet bubble burst of 2001.”

At a Museum of Broadcast seminar after WNEW-FM dropped the classic rock format, Herman suggested that “the glory days” of rock radio were over, sparking a lively debate among his fellow alums.

In later years he developed a website called “The Dave Herman Music Project,” devoted to rock music. Its features include his favorite albums, the likes of “Abbey Road” by the Beatles, “Born to Run” by Springsteen and “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison.

He has posted blogs on the site, though none since August 2011, talking about why he chose those particular records. The site contains no personal information beyond his radio biography.

Herman is due in court Friday in St. Croix. If convicted, he faces 10 years to life in prison, along with a $250,000 fine, prosecutors said.