Miss New Jersey says someone is threatening to make some personal photographs of her public if she does not give up her crown. But Amy Polumbo [NOT pictured, that’s actually Vanessa Williams] is not just Miss New Jersey, she’s also a Jersey girl, and says she has no intention of giving in.
“It would certainly be easier for me to simply succumb to these unlawful and immoral threats, and quietly disappear,” Polumbo said today at a news conference she called in Asbury Park. Polumbo, a 22-year-old Howell resident and a senior at Wagner College on Staten Island, won the Miss New Jersey competition last month, giving her the right to compete in the next Miss America competition – wherever and whenever it may be held. Her platform: Protecting children from online predators.
Polumbo’s lawyer, Anthony Caruso, said that starting last week, Polumbo, her family and officials in the Miss New Jersey Education Foundation received packages with pictures of her and the demand that she resign by Friday.
Caruso said the pictures show her with some friends and some may have been photos that she posted years ago on a private Internet site. Did they reveal skin that a pageant-sanctioned swimsuit would cover up? College students behaving badly, perhaps? Caruso would not say.
“I don’t think the photos are that bad,” Caruso said. “The people posting this blackmail scheme are trying to make these photos out to be worse than I think they are.” He said he couldn’t comment further because more photos could arrive and change everything.
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Blackmail Is My Life