Jersey City Mayor Nude Photos: Why Were Photos Of Jerramiah Healy Taken?

Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, D-Jersey City, N.J., recently recounted an incident in 2004 when he was photographed naked on his front porch. His graphic description drew the attention of Councilman Steven Fulop, D-Jersey City, who is challenging Healy for his job this year.

Healy told "The Jersey Journal" that a group of Hispanic girls woke him up around 3 a.m. that night ten years back, by banging trash cans and making other loud noises in the vicinity of his home on Ferry Street in Jersey City.

Healy said he went outside clothed only in a towel to investigate the noises. "They pulled the towel off me, [and] I start laughing," the mayor told the paper's Tom Moran. Healy said he the girls began to do "other stuff" he later described as "filthy", saying he chased them away after telling them he was old enough to be their grandparent.

A photograph of Healy's naked body on his front steps appeared soon after the incident.

The awkward, and somewhat spontaneous account by Jerramiah Healy led to an opportunity for Steve Fulop, a Marine veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, to comment on the incident: "It's another embarrassment...courtesy of Jerry Healy, and it's sad that 10 years after the fact, he now decides to blame Hispanic women for his personal problems," Fulop told the Newark Star-Ledger, noting Healy's specific mention of "three Hispanic girls".

Nidia Lopez, a Hispanic councilwoman in Jersey City, was outraged at the mayor's comments: "I think the Hispanic community deserves an apology...For this mayor to degrade Hispanic women in this way..." she said, "He's laughing about it. How the hell did he know they were Hispanic."

According to Gothamist, Lopez asked Healy about the incident in 2009 while running for city council. "I asked him if that was really him on the stoop [in the picture], and he said 'I don't know baby, I was so drunk I don't remember'."

On the newfound publicity of the late night situation in 2004, Healy's campaign spokesman Joshua Henne issued a statement saying "Events from eight years ago aren't what matters to either Mayor Healy or voters in this election. What matters is Mayor Healy hiring over 300 new cops [and] getting 1,500 illegal guns off the street at no taxpayer expense..."

According to NJ.com, a personal spokesperson for Healy had no comment on the incident.