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Republican New Jersey Mayor Caught Up In ‘Rentboy’ Scandal



Jillian Rayfield October 24, 2011, 11:25 AM

A Republican mayor in New Jersey denies that he agreed to pay a California man for sex through the website Rentboy.com, and says he doesn’t even know if the pictures posted of him in bright blue underwear are real.

Medford City Councilman and Mayor Chris Myers, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2008 against Democrat John Adler, is accused of paying the man $500 for sex during a trip to California in October 2010.

Danielle Camilli of the Burlington County Times reports that a man sent the paper a series of e-mails alleging that Myers agreed to pay him for sex, and promised him a car and a recording studio after the encounter at the Fairmount Hotel in Newport Beach, CA. The man said that Myers said he was a mayor from New Jersey, and showed him identification. [ http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer_news/website-alleges-mayor-paid-for-sex/article_c0325af6-d106-5356-a0cf-7185ea859356.html ]

But, according to the Times, Myers reneged on his promises, so the man contacted the paper and then put up a website — called www.mayormyers.webs.com, which is now defunct — which included compromising pictures of Myers in blue Calvin Klein underwear.

The e-mails to the Times began on October 7. In one the man calls Myers “a lying, manipulative, egotistical hypocrite and escort enthusiast. I am proof.” In another he posts a picture of an ATM receipt for $500, which the man claims was his fee.

Here’s a screengrab of one of the pictures, via Gawker: [ http://gawker.com/5852412/nj-republican-pol-having-a-rentboy-scandal ]



The Trentonian reposted the man’s description of his encounter with Myers, originally from www.mayormyers.webs.com, which he says Myers initially contacted him through Rentboy.com. “He also described himself as a bisexual professional man who lives a straight life but likes to indulge in his homosexual desires when he is traveling,” he writes.

Once they met, the man writes:

I asked him where he lived and what he did for a living. He told me he that he lived in NJ (which explained his brazen personality) and that he worked for the government. I jokingly asked if he was some sort of spy. He laughed and said that he was actually a mayor. After telling me that, I didn’t believe him so he got up from the bed and gave me a wallet from his briefcase. I opened the wallet and sure enough it was a badge and his Identification showing him as Mayor of Medford New Jersey. He then asked me if I had a plan for doing something else for a living. I told him that I had a recording engineering degree and that I would love to have my own recording studio.

You can read the full (and graphic) description of the alleged encounter here.

Myers emphatically denies the allegations. “This is absolutely crazy. I have no idea who this person is,” Myers told the Times last week. “Obviously, we’re dealing with a crackpot and someone who is pissed off at me in some way. There are crazy people.”

He added that his attorney advised him that he can’t get the site taken down. “I will check again, but I’ve been told to ignore it and not investigate,” he said. “I’m thoroughly disgusted at the lengths people will go to.”

Myers said he didn’t know whether or not the pictures were of him, or whether or not he was in California at the time the incidents allegedly occurred. “I’ve been down that road before, where a photo has been photoshopped to look like something it wasn’t.”

TPM readers will have encountered Rentboy.com before in the case of George Alan Rekers, a co-founder of the Family Research Council who is prominent in the ex-gay movement, and was caught walking off a plane with an escort named “Lucien” whom he met through the website. [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/anti-gay_leader_caught_with_gay_prostitute_pleads.php ]


http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/republican_new_jersey_mayor_caught_up_in_a_rentboy.php