Peekskill, NY — Peekskill Mayor Frank Catalina (R, C, I), has offered up to $5,000 for information leading to the identification of the individual or individuals responsible for allegedly hacking into his Facebook and posting pornographic images through his account, Tuesday morning.
The mayor says he was alerted to the situation, that the Peekskill Post have coined, PornGate, Tuesday morning.
“I got a call about a post and I went to Concerned Citizens page and was able to ‘delete post’ then I was told it was on a few other pages and I’ve been surfing around deleting wherever I could,” Catalina told The Peekskill Post.
He then posted and shared the following message of his Facebook page at 10:48 A.M.:
“To the creep who is posting porn under my name: I am offering a $2,500 reward to anyone for information leading to the identity of the person or persons responsible. If it turns out to be a political attack, the reward will be doubled to $5,000. Then, I will press charges and insure you are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Then, I will sue you civilly and will make your life miserable and insure you are well known as the creep you are. Thank you to the many who reached out to me, within minutes, of this lowest of the low dirty tricks.”
Catalina also said that he did not receive any offensive images via private message and that if he finds or is made aware of any further offensive images being posted from his account he will take them down immediately.
Someone close to the mayor says he attributes it to “political beef” and shared with BW, “how silly it is to put a $2000+ reward on that.”
Peekskill Common Councilman offered this advise via the Peekskill Community Network Facebook group page; “The administrator of each group should be able to hide, delete or report it to Facebook. There’s a 99% chance your account was hacked, don’t be paranoid about politics. It happens all the time, even to me.”
[Editor’s Note] While the whole posting porn angle is new, many Facebook accounts have been getting hacked lately (accounts of elected officials, clergy members and many regular Facebook users), where your page is cloned and a friend request is sent to all your friends. When they accept the invitation, their account gets hacked and the process repeats itself. If you get a friend request from someone you are already friends with, do not open it, do not accept the friend request and delete it immediately. If this has happened to your account, the easy fix is to change your password immediately and that should do the trick.
AJ Woodson
AJ Woodson is the Editor-In-Chief of Black Westchester and Co-Owner of Urban Soul Media Group, the parent company, Host & Producer of the People Before Politics Radio Show. AJ is a Father, Brother, An Author, Journalism Fellow (Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism), Hip-Hop Artist - one third of the legendary underground rap group JVC FORCE known for the single Strong Island, Radio Personality, Hip-Hop Historian, Documentarian, Activist, Criminal Justice Advocate and Freelance Journalist whose byline has appeared in several print publications and online sites including The Source, Vibe, the Village Voice, Upscale, Sonicnet.com, Launch.com, Rolling Out Newspaper, Daily Challenge Newspaper, Spiritual Minded Magazine, Word Up! Magazine, On The Go Magazine and several others.
