Garden State Beauty Queen Claims Blackmail

The reigning Miss New Jersey says an uncongenial blackmailer is trying to muscle her out of her tiara with untoward photos, the Star Ledger reports. Amy Polumbo, 22, received as many as 12 pictures in the mail last month with a letter demanding she surrender her title to the runner-up. The photos were apparently lifted from a private Facebook page.

Polumbo, who was crowned last month on a platform of internet safety, insists the images were not lewd, and her attorney adds they appear to have been doctored. The pageant also got the snapshots, and is deciding how to act. The incident is the latest in a string of pageant scandals: Miss Nevada lost her crown when racy photos of her surfaced on the net. (More beauty pageant stories.)