Alycia Lane, the former CBS anchor in Philadelphia who was fired after calling a cop a "dyke bitch," may have been the victim of email snooping. By her ex-co-anchor.

Larry Mendte, who teamed with Lane in September 2003 and quickly saw their ratings shoot skyward, is being investigated by the FBI on allegations that he opened Lane's private Yahoo email and then leaked what he read to the media.

On Saturday, federal agents raided Mendte's home and seized a computer. Should they find evidence that Mendte, who earns an estimated $700,000 a year, was leaking her secrets, Lane's case against CBS, for wrongful termination, could gain a helluva lot more ammo. (More on that below.)

Lane, of course, made headlines in May 2007 when her emails, with some racy photos, to sports anchor Rich Eisen, which were intercepted by his wife Suzy Shuster (thanks to their joint email account), who promptly replied to her with a scathing email.

But staffers at the station are left wondering: Why would Mendte 1) read her private emails; and 2) leak their contents? After all, weren't these colleagues friends?

Perhaps not, say current and former staffers: "Their off-air relationship had its highs and lows; they seemed to be barely speaking by the end of last year."

The sentence for violating the computer-fraud law prohibiting unauthorized access is determined by the economic loss to the injured party, according to federal sentencing guidelines.

Cases in which the invasion of privacy was for economic gain - extortion, computer sabotage or insider trading - are likely to be treated more harshly.

The federal government's decision to swear out a search warrant against a prominent journalist intrigued former prosecutors and defense lawyers, who say the decision to prosecute would largely be determined by how Mendte used any information he might have accessed illegally.

Richard R. Harris, a Philadelphia defense lawyer, said he found it "particularly strange" that the case rose to a level that would interest the FBI.

"I could see Alycia Lane suing Larry Mendte if she believes he's tapping into her e-mail," he said. "I can't see the federal government becoming involved unless mail fraud is alleged."

But former federal prosecutor Rocco C. Cipparone Jr. said that Mendte's high profile "would certainly make it interesting to the feds" because he could be held up as an example.

In order to use Mendte's alleged actions to help her case against CBS3, Lane's lawyers would need to establish that Mendte passed along Lane's correspondence to his employers, said Henry E. Hockeimer, a former federal prosecutor and defense lawyer.

"The fact that he was an employee does not necessarily mean he was acting as an agent of the employer," said Hockeimer. He said key factors would be where Mendte conducted the alleged snooping - on whose computer, and using whose account - and whom he might have told. [Phil Inq]

But here's the most interesting part of all this: When Lane's emails to Eisen were first uncovered, by the New York Post, it was never disclosed how they fell into the paper's hands. Might it have been Mendte? Sabotaging her from the very beginning? Maybe, maybe not. But as recently as January, Page Six was playing nice with Lane.