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Senior Amy Polumbo is named Miss New JerseyPageant neophyte takes Miss N.J. crown By ALESHA WILLIAMS, Freehold Bureau
The theater-performance major sailed through singing "Astonishing" from the Broadway musical "Little Women" in the pageant's talent competition. But she said she tripped onstage during the evening gown competition and had a major case of nerves about the pageant's interview and swimsuit competitions. "The first night I was nervous, but after I was called for Top 10 I just said to myself, "This is funny, and you have to have fun with it,' " said Polumbo, a senior at Wagner College on Staten Island. "The butt glue in the bathing suits, all the preparation — you can't take everything in life too seriously. "I really felt that throughout this whole process no matter what happened … I wanted to show the judges who I really am," said the 120-pound, 5-foot 4-inch blonde. Apparently judges liked what they got to know of Polumbo, who campaigned for protecting children from Internet predators and said she loves pizza and ice cream as much as the next guy. The self-proclaimed "proud Jersey girl" beat 27 contestants for her crown, passed on by reigning Miss New Jersey Georgine DiMaria at the Music Pier in Ocean City. Polumbo said she had not expected to win a title — especially since Miss New Jersey is only the second pageant in which she has competed — but her supporters were not surprised. "She really challenged herself from not really knowing much about pageants to going in for the gusto," said Carol Taylor, director of the Miss Seashore Line pageant. Polumbo entered that competition — her first — to earn a place in the Miss New Jersey pageant. "A beauty pageant is strictly beauty on the outside. In this case the beauty has to be inside, too, and Amy's got it," Taylor said. The pageant world may be new to Polumbo, but she plans to take advantage of all 365 days of her reign as Miss New Jersey. She will use her $10,000 scholarship won through the pageant to help pay tuition at Wagner. As Miss New Jersey, she could earn another $30,000-plus through appearances, Taylor said. "A lot of girls have been wanting this so long," said Polumbo, adding she hopes to make as many appearances as possible this year. "It could have been any of them, but they (the judges) chose me for a reason, and I plan to do my absolute best." Polumbo will represent the state at the next Miss America pageant, which has not yet been scheduled.
Miss New Jersey claims extortion attempt By MaryAnn Spoto The reigning Miss New Jersey claims someone is using photographs she posted on the Internet to try to force her to give up her crown. Amy Polumbo and her attorney held a news conference at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park this afternoon to denounce the blackmail attempt. The 22-year-old Howell woman said she received copies of between six and 12 of her photos in the mail on June 25 with a letter threatening to make them public unless she gives up her crown to the pageant’s first runner-up. “Being crowned as Miss New Jersey is a dream come true. But that dream has now turned into a nightmare. I am presently the victim of blackmail and possible extortion,” Polumbo said. Neither Polumbo nor her attorney, Anthony R. Caruso, would describe the photos, except to say that they are not lewd. They are shots Polumbo posted in a private section of an Internet photo-sharing site so her friends and family could see them, Polumbo said. Carouso said they appear to have been doctored. He is contacting state and federal authorities to identify the source of the alleged blackmail, who is believed to “be someone close to Amy,” Caruso said. “We hope to have much more information as to the sources of this threat in the very near future,” Caruso said. “Until then, we are refraining from further comment as to the specifics of the photos or the letter.” Polumbo’s aunt, Cathy Capper, said after the news conference that the photos are not at all revealing. In fact, she said, her niece appeared in less clothing during the swimsuit completion at the Miss New Jersey pageant where she won her title. The beauty queen’s coach also rushed to her defense. “She came to me a year ago with a dream. She showed me a Miss America Coloring Book that her Dad who passed away when she was small gave to her,” said Darlene Corrubia, herself a former Miss Monmouth County. “I have coached lots of young women with personal issues. Amy is kind and sincere. That will get her through this.” There is a rich recent tradition of beauty pageant contestants being forced to return their tiaras. Ashley Harder, last year’s Miss New Jersey USA, resigned in January because she was pregnant. Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees was stripped of her title after racy photos of her appeared on the Internet. And Miss USA Tara Conner was caught drinking in New York bars before she turned 21. Conner was allowed to keep her crown after she agreed to enter rehab. If Polumbo did step down for some reason, first runner-up Ronica Licciardello would become Miss New Jersey. Reached by phone at her Mount Laurel home today, Licciardello told the Associated Press she had not heard of the scandal. “I hope this situation is resolved in the best way possible,” she said.
College offers students help in beauty-queen flap Wagner to assist with media inquiries about senior By JUDY L. RANDALL, Staff Writer STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — With the fate of Miss New Jersey — Wagner College senior Amy Polumbo — to be decided today by pageant officials, the school earlier this week e-mailed the entire student body offering “assistance” with media inquiries that students might have received about the beauty queen. Several students were contacted by two newspapers, according to a Wagner spokesman, who said a reporter for a tabloid made her way into a campus dormitory, hoping to speak to one of Miss Polumbo’s sorority sisters. The attempt failed. The Advance has not pursued comments from individual students. Lee Manchester, director of media relations for the Wagner College communications office, said students are neither encouraged nor discouraged from speaking to reporters. Miss Polumbo, a performance arts major at the Grymes Hill school who is currently on a leave of absence, has said she is the victim of a blackmail attempt by someone bent on getting her to give up the crown she won last month. Pictures of the 22-year-old Howell Township resident taken from a Facebook.com account were anonymously sent to pageant officials by a person or group calling itself “The Committee to Save Miss America.” While Miss Polumbo has declined to release the photos, she has repeatedly said there is nothing salacious about them. Two members of the five-person panel that represents the Miss New Jersey pageant committee, which will determine whether Miss Polumbo gets to keep her title, told the Associated Press there is nothing untoward about the pictures. Nonetheless, Miss Polumbo’s attorney, Anthony Caruso, has said copies of the photos have been given to the office of the New Jersey state attorney general, who is considering investigating the matter. Manchester said the college has fielded “between a half-dozen and a dozen” calls from Wagner students in recent days who were “perplexed” about the media interest in Miss Polumbo. Some of the students, he said, had not been following the news and were unaware of the controversy. He said a number of students who, like Miss Polumbo, are theater majors, had been contacted by a reporter from a New Jersey newspaper seeking their impressions of her. Another reporter, from a Manhattan tabloid, learned that the president of Miss Polumbo’s sorority was staying in a dorm on campus, “misrepresented” herself to gain entry to the building and left a note on the student’s door requesting an interview, Manchester related. He said the college protested the action to the newspaper. “The dorms are the homes of our students,” said Manchester. “We won’t tolerate having our students’ homes invaded.” In an e-mail sent Tuesday by Manchester to Wagner College students, he said: “Several of you have been contacted by reporters in recent days, and some have found the experience a little overwhelming. If you are contacted by a reporter and need any assistance in determining how or if to respond, please feel free to call me in the Wagner College Communications Office. As a courtesy to the college, I would also ask that you notify us when you are contacted by a member of the media so that we can keep track of these inquiries.” Manchester said it was normal to communicate with the student body via e-mail on “school-related” matters that pertain to the students. But he said neither the college nor Wagner College president Dr. Richard Guarasci would formally comment on Miss Polumbo’s situation. “This is a personal matter of one of the students and she is handling it well,” said Manchester. “This is not a college matter. Manchester said Miss Polumbo is well-regarded on the Wagner campus.
He said she has appeared in the ensemble cast of three college theatrical productions, including: “Bye Bye Birdie” in the 2003-04 season and “Chess” and “Swing” during the 2004-05 season. He said she has not appeared in a Wagner production in the last two years. Manchester said that after Miss Polumbo was named Miss New Jersey a month ago, she requested and was granted a leave of absence from the college in order to assume her pageant duties and pursue the Miss America crown. She is slated to return to the school for the fall 2008 term. While the exact content of the photos continues to be of some interest, a spokesman for the Miss New Jersey pageant, Mark Soifer, who is also on the panel that will make its decision about Miss Polumbo’s future today, has described the pictures as “kids having a good time at a party,” according to the AP. Judy L. Randall is a news reporter with the Advance. She may be reached at randall@siadvance.com. Copyright © 2007 Staten Island Advance
A royal ruling for Miss N.J. ‘Private’ Web photos are met with shrugs as pageant issues decision By TIM VASSILAKOS STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Staten Islanders are solidly in agreement with yesterday’s decision that lets Miss New Jersey keep her crown despite pictures that show her — fully clothed — clowning around suggestively with friends. “These pictures are what have been causing this commotion? You have to be kidding me,” said Michael Palazzolo, 19, of Arrochar as he flipped through the pictures of Amy Polumbo that were featured on NBC’s “Today Show.” “Go on my ‘private’ Facebook (profile), you’ll find a lot worse stuff among my friends — this was a total waste of time,” declared the teen. Hours after Ms. Polumbo, a senior at Wagner College, Grymes Hill, went public with the photos — which had been sent anonymously last week to pageant officials — board members decided the material did not merit stripping her of the title despite behavior she admitted was “not ladylike.” One photo shows her in a limousine with denim-clad legs spread wide; in another, her boyfriend seems to bite her breast through her shirt. “I’m very happy about this decision, and I look forward to resuming my agenda as Miss New Jersey,” said a smiling Ms. Polumbo, who blew kisses to those gathered for the announcement in Ocean City. “It was absolutely relieving. I feel like I’ve been crowned again.” Like most college students, Ms. Polumbo probably didn’t think that what she termed “silly college fun” was a big deal at the time — and she never expected the photos would hit the public square. “Um, are you kidding me? So what? She’s drinking — leave her alone already,” said disgruntled Diana D’Alessio, 21, of New Brighton. “The girl is a 22-year-old college student — not a robot. I don’t believe how much media attention this received.” Ms. Polumbo has said she was of age when the photos were taken. Her lawyer, Anthony Caruso, said that a person or persons claiming to be The Committee to Save Miss America threatened to make the photos public unless she resigned her title. Yesterday’s decision means Ms. Polumbo will represent the Garden State in the next Miss America pageant, which has yet to be scheduled. “You know what? I hope she wins Miss America, just to show the country that people of her age should be having fun,” said Anthony Diaz, 23, of Stapleton. “The people who blackmailed her should be ashamed of themselves — putting the poor girl under that stress for no damn reason.” Her avowed pageant “cause” is protecting children from Internet predators. “Nothing you post on the Internet is private,” she said. “You have to be careful because there are people out there who will ruin your reputation.” “Anyone who has Facebook can agree with me on this: There are millions of worse photos — probably in your own profile,” said an angry Chelsea Grace, 18, of New Springville. “All I know is that if I ever become famous — which I highly, highly doubt — my Facebook days are over. People are trying to get their 15 minutes of fame in any way possible nowadays.” Lou Barthold, co-executive director of the Miss New Jersey Pageant, said the board liked the way Ms. Polumbo dealt with the threats. They also didn’t consider the photos to be all that bad, he added. “This is 2007; things have changed,” he said. “We felt that some (of the photos) maybe were a little out of line. But nothing was that bad to warrant taking the crown away from her. She wanted to fight it, and we’re going to back her all the way.” Ms. Polumbo said she does not know who leaked the photos, but called the responsible party “a very miserable person. I pray for them; I really do.” “There’s so many privacy violations with what happened to her, and poor Facebook is getting a bad reputation just because someone tried to blackmail her using it,” said Stephanie Myers, 20, of Dongan Hills. “She has done so much good in her life, and to expose her time of leisure is a shame — she deserves to have fun.” Associated Press material was used in this report. Tim Vassilakos is a news reporter for the Advance. He may be reached at vassilakos@siadvance.com. Copyright © 2007 Staten Island Advance
Miss N.J. learns ‘in the public eye’ Polumbo: Nothing is private on Internet By Michelle Gladden, Freehold Bureau HOWELL — Among the many lessons learned over the past three weeks, Amy Polumbo said she has experienced firsthand how the Internet can be damaging for not only children but also for adults. “There are people out there who want to destroy you,” the 22-year-old said. “It’s a scary place if you don’t use it properly.” Now entering her senior year at Wagner College on Staten Island, the theater major was crowned Miss New Jersey on June 16. But 10 days later, a letter and packet of photographs containing copies of pictures she had posted on her private Facebook.com page would become a source of contention. Blackmailers threatened to make the pictures public if Polumbo did not relinquish the crown that qualified her to compete in the Miss America pageant. Copies were sent to Miss New Jersey officials as well as Miss America pageant officials. “I’ve dealt with obstacles in my life, but this was one that I had to face in the public eye,” Polumbo said. Her most grave obstacle, Polumbo said, was the death of her stepfather when she was 14 years old and then having to overcome muscular tension dyphonia, a common voice disorder that kept her away from singing and performing in community theater shows for two years. “We were ordinary people dealing with an extraordinary event, but I think it all happened for a reason,” Polumbo said of the past two weeks and the national recognition she received. “I was surprised by all the interest that we were getting especially since we are at war and we have a presidential election approaching. The fact that I was the number-one Google search for a couple of days was surprising.” After she made just two appearances as the 2007 Miss New Jersey, all other appearances, as well as the signing of her Miss America pageant contract, were put on hold until state pageant officials could make a decision as to whether the Howell High School graduate should be stripped of her crown. Just one year ago, Polumbo had not even considered being a part of the pageant world. It was under the suggestion of Pete Bruno, Howell High School’s supervisor of extracurricular activities, that she came to compete for the title. “The first time I met her was at the Steve Gosewisch Memorial,” Bruno said. Gosewisch, who died at age 51, taught music and an art appreciation course at the Freehold Regional High School District’s Fine and Performing Arts Center at Howell High School. “I kind of keyed in to her because they were talking about (her role at) Disney World, so I called her into my office and said, “Have you ever thought of competing in Miss America?’ “ The two would correspond via e-mail over the next few months, and, upon her return home from a year-long portrayal of “Ariel” at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Polumbo would meet with Bruno and his partner in pageant coaching, Darlene Corrubia. “She got hooked and said, “OK, I want to do this,’ “ Corrubia said. “For most of these women, it will take them a couple of tries to win a local, so we said, “Let’s get started early (in the season).’ “ Although a pageant neophyte, Polumbo went on to win her first competition, Miss Seashore Line, which qualified her for the Miss New Jersey competition. “We worked with her for one month,” Corrubia said. “We got her ready for interviews. Peter took her to buy her bathing suit and took her gown shopping. We were intending to do a few pageants for practice. We never dreamed she’d win the first one.” But win she did, and a few months later she would go on to win the state competition despite tripping over her gown. “I would recommend it to every young woman,” Polumbo said of her pageant experience. “It forced me to look inside myself and to portray who I was to an audience.” Polumbo’s platform was Internet safety. Her hope was to caution young children about the dangers of on-line predators, but today that platform has grown. “I want children and adults to know that nothing is private on the Internet,” Polumbo said. “You have to be careful who you trust. I was too trusting of people and allowed people, who I should not have, to have access to my private life.” Five day’s after receiving the threat, Polumbo, through the direction of her Miss Seashore Line pageant coaches, hired a lawyer, and one week later she held her first press conference. She would not describe the contents of the photographs but made it clear that she would fight any blackmail or extortion attempt. And although it was her hope, she said, to keep the photographs private, or rather, to share them with close friends and family only, on Thursday morning she made them public on the “Today” show. Polumbo said she thought it was important to release the pictures herself because a number of photographs that were not of her, but rather of a friend who looked similar to her, were beginning to circulate. “I just wanted the whole thing to end,” she said. By late afternoon, the board had made its decision: Polumbo could keep the crown. While many publicly supported her decision to go public in an effort to thwart the alleged blackmailers, a heavy weighing of the situation against her Miss New Jersey contract, which included a moral turpitude clause, had to be considered. “Every girl starts off by signing a contract,” said Sylvia Barthold, the pageant’s state field director. The contract not only stipulates that each Miss New Jersey contestant live and work or go to school in New Jersey, but that they be unmarried women between the ages of 17 and 24, Barthold said. Barthold’s husband, Lou, is executive director and director of field operations, she said. “(The contract) basically states that you have never had an abortion, you are not married, that you are female, that you have never been in jail, that you have no children and are a citizen of the United States,” Barthold said. But in light of the recent events, Barthold, who is in charge of running checks on all the contestants to ensure that they meet pageant guidelines, said they will add new guidelines for women competing in the 52 local pageants. “From now on, we will instruct every girl to shut down their private sites,” she said. “If they have their communion picture or a family portrait up, that’s fine, but if they have anything they don’t want people to see, they should shut down the site right away.” Michelle Gladden: (732) 308-7753 or mgladden@app.com
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HOWELL — Acting and performing are second nature to Amy Polumbo of Howell, but remembering to be herself was the tougher challenge for the 22-year-old crowned the state's newest Miss New Jersey on Saturday.