NJ Lawmaker Pulls a Weiner, Resigns

Nude photos of Cumberland County freeholder lead to his resignation Tuesday

Yes, another politician is naked on the Internet.

Cumberland County Freeholder Louis N. Magazzu took nude photos of himself and sent them to a woman with whom he was flirting online. Now those naked photos are published for all to see on a self-proclaimed political watchdog site called magazzuwatch.com.

After demands from fellow legislators, Magazzu resigned from office Tuesday.

(Read Magazzu's full resignation statement.)

"It's behavior that is not to be expected of us as a leaders, and when we make mistakes of that magnitude we just need to collect ourselves and step down," Cumberland County Freeholder Director William Whelan said.

Magazzu, who recently resigned as chairman of the county’s Democratic Party, has openly admitted that he took the nude photos with his cell phone while standing naked in front of a mirror. He sent the pictures to a woman via email.

Magazzu is still married, though he's been separated from his wife for two years, according to his attorney Rocco C. Cipparone Jr.

The 53-year-old Democrat said that he sent the photos to a woman with whom he corresponded online for several years. He says she requested the photos and that he didn't know she was “working with an avowed political enemy.”

The woman, who remains unnamed, sent the photos of the longtime Cumberland County politician to magazzuwatch.com’s administrator Carl B. Johnson.

"The website isn't about posting shots of Lou naked or anything," Johnson told the Daily Journal. "It is about exposing the underbelly of local politics. He was the figurehead, the person who ran the party and the freeholder board for a decade."

Magazzu told the Daily Journal last month that he knows his actions were wrong. Now Magazzu has hired a lawyer and is fighting Johnson and the website that bears his naked image.

"Mr. Magazzu apologizes for any unintentionally caused embarrassment to the people of Cumberland County,” Cipparone said in a statement to NBC Philadelphia. “He already has apologized to his family for the embarrassment caused by these private communications, which without his consent now have been made public in censored form in the website, and apparently in uncensored form distributed more broadly by Johnson."

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