(CN) - Dave Herman, a New York rock radio icon who was accused last year of attempting to transport a 7-year-old girl from New Jersey to the Virgin Islands to have sex with her, has died.
Herman, who hosted WNEW-FM's "Rock and Roll Morning Show" for 27 years, was rushed from the Essex County jail to University Hospital in Newark Wednesday night. According to his attorney, Marc Agnifilo, the former disc jockey died of an aneurysm of a major blood vessel near the heart.
"He was talkative, he was engaged, he was vibrant," Agnifilo said. "It's hard for a 78-year-old to be in jail. It's tragic that it had to end this way."
Herman, who retired to St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in 2008, was arrested in its airport in October. Prosecutors said they had stumbled upon Herman while looking for sexual predators in an online chat room.
Prosecutors said an undercover officer posing as the 36-year-old mother of a 7-year-old child engaged Herman in conversations during which he tried to arrange a sexual encounter with the girl.
At the time of his arrest, prosecutors said, he was waiting at the airport to meet the mother and daughter.
Herman pleaded not guilty, was denied bail and was transferred to New Jersey. Agnifilo acknowledged the case would be long and difficult, but maintained his client had been duped in an undercover sting.
Herman, born in Huntington, Long Island, was the son of Rabbi Mayer Herman, who led The Mosholu Jewish Center, one of the largest congregations in the Bronx.
"My mom told me I was fascinated by radio before I could talk," Herman told a Courthouse News reporter during an interview for a book about the history of rock radio.
"The first voice that I remember hearing on the air was Martin Block [widely credited with being radio's first disc jockey] and I believed the Make Believe Ballroom, which Block utterly fabricated, was a real place with a crystal chandelier where grownups would go to dance."
Later, Herman said, it was William B. Williams, who succeeded Block as WNEW-AM in New York's biggest star, who got him "totally hooked" on radio.
"It was the way he spoke, his enunciation, and I hung on his every word he said between playing the records. In fact, over time I said his sign on, 'Hello, world, this is William B Williams' so often I finally was able to imitate him perfectly."
"It was because of him that I vowed to myself to someday be on the radio," Herman said.
Another New York radio icon gave Herman his first on-air exposure in the mid-1950s.
Murray Kaufman, not yet known as "Murray the K," the swinging disc jockey who dubbed himself "the Fifth Beatle," was hosting a middle-of-the-road pop music show an hour a night each week night on WMCA-Am in New York, and two hours on Saturday night.
During the second hour of his show, Kaufman invited members of his studio audience to be part of his "Record Review Board," passing judgment on new releases. One Saturday night, Herman and a high school friend were picked to appear on the show.
Afterward, Herman said, Kaufman complimented him by saying he had "a real kind of way with the microphone ... you ought to think about going into the business."