Lane, 35, news anchor of CBS3, is accused of punching a police officer in the face and yelling derogatory remarks at her.
Rendell said he wasn't letting Lane off the hook completely. "Does trouble seem to find her?" he asked. "Yeah, from what little I know about her entire life, she's had some difficult times, and I can guess you can say some of them were of her own making.
"But I think she is a very decent person," he said, giving her community service and police fundraisers a plug.
Rendell declined to reveal Lane's version of the story to Cataldi. He told the WIP host he was calling to elaborate on details discussed by Daily News gossip columnist Dan Gross, who'd been interviewed moments earlier on the station, including to clear up the timing of the call, reported earlier as having been made on Sunday night.
Lane's lawyer, David Smith, who has represented "Simple Life" star Nicole Richie and New York publicist Lizzie Grubman, said Lane had been "accosted by several individuals wearing plainclothes."
"They attempted to grab her camera to prevent her from taking photographs of an altercation they [plainsclothes people] were involved in," Smith said. "Miss Lane was shocked to learn after the fact that these individuals were police officers."
New York City cops have a different version.
About 2 a.m. Sunday, the twice-divorced Lane, new love Q102 radio morning host Booker and the other couple were inside a cab, which was behind a slow-moving vehicle containing three plainclothes police officers, police said.
One of the men inside the cab jumped out and ran over to the unmarked police car and, soon afterward, the officers identified themselves, a New York police spokesman said.
