Mis New Jersey, Amy Polumbo, in photo blackmail plot. Photo Credit: Donald B. Kravitz / Splash News July 6, 2007(Sawf News): Miss New Jersey Amy Polumbo has also joined an ever growing group of crowned beauties getting in trouble over some not-so-decent pictures of them taken years prior.
The 22-year-old senior at Wagner College told reporters Thursday that she was being blackmailed into relinquishing her crown to first runner-up Ronica Licciardello.
"Being crowned as Miss New Jersey is a dream come true," Polumbo, said at a news conference at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park, reports New Jersey Star-Ledger. "But that dream has now turned into a nightmare. I am presently the victim of blackmail and possible extortion."
Polumbo, a native of Howell, revealed that an anonymous person is threatening to go public with 18 private pictures of her and some friends that she posted years ago on a private Website.
"It would certainly be easier for me to simply succumb to these unlawful and immoral threats, and quietly disappear," Polumbo admits but says she she won't take this affront lying down.
Polumbo's attorney, Anthony R. Caruso, says he has turned over information and copies of the photos in question to the state Attorney General's Office to help them identify the source of the threats, which he believes comes from "someone close to Amy."
He refused to release or describe the photos.
Another set of letters and pictures sent to the board of directors of the Miss New Jersey pageant, tells Caruso, had captions added to the photos that Polumbo did not put there "to try to justify the blackmail threat."
"We just got the material," Miss New Jersey organization spokesman Mark Soifer said. "We're hoping the best for her. The board has to review it and make a decision."
"I feel a lot more safe with Amy now that the state is investigating it," Caruso said. "If the person who's doing it continues with this, they will be caught."
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