A New Jersey faculty board candidate was caught red-handed sending vicious, sexual messages a few conservative feminine board member in a bunch chat labeled “ThisBitchNeedsToDie.”
Images of Scott Semaya's vile texts about Danielle Bellomo at a July faculty board assembly leaked this week on social media — and the widening scandal is now being investigated by native cops and roiling the prosperous suburb of Marlboro.
“Bellomo have to be chilly — her nips may minimize glass proper n” learn one textual content, allegedly captured on digicam whereas Semaya's fingers typed an “o.”
Outrage was rapid, and Semaya this week dropped out of the race for the Marlboro Board of Schooling, adopted by his working mate Melissa Goldberg.
The scandal within the leafy Monmouth County enclave has drawn parallels to the current controversy in Virginia, the place lawyer normal candidate Jay Jones was lately outed for a 2022 textual content message suggesting the state's then-Republican Home Speaker deserved to be shot within the head.
“It was completely terrifying,” Bellomo completely informed The Publish. “After I discovered in regards to the messages I used to be completely shocked, particularly with the local weather of our nation. It despatched chills down my backbone.
Bellomo, 38, is a MAGA-loving, President Trump-supporting mother of three and staunch Republican, who poses in a star-spangled bikini for her Fb profile image. She believes she has been focused for her politics.
“I'm a proud and unapologetic advocate for parental rights, for my kids, for our city and our state and for that they've this hate for me,” she mentioned.
Semaya, 38, an accountant who has voiced progressive liberal views, was one in all 5 candidates working for 3 open seats on the Marlboro Board of Schooling. He cited solely “household circumstances” in asserting his exit from the race. He didn't return a number of messages in search of remark.
“My complete household has been affected by it,” Bellomo mentioned, noting her older son, 12, was more likely to see the nasty textual content.
Mockingly, Bellomo was as soon as Semaya's daughter's Woman Scouts chief.
“That is heartbreaking for me,” she mentioned. “That is what he was considering after I was volunteering along with his kids — it's a tough tablet to swallow.”
Bellomo, who's serving her first full, three-year time period on the board, mentioned she's been subjected to months of on-line threats and made a number of police experiences.
Whereas the social media put up in regards to the “ThisBitchNeedstoDie” group textual content included only a single shot of Semaya's mobile phone, Bellomo mentioned she's seen a number of different pictures of the messages exchanged by the group together with “very particular actions that they need to do to me and what their intention is.
“These textual content messages are the primary time I used to be capable of see they don't need me alive,” she added, declining to share the extra pictures.
Bellomo mentioned she has a protecting order towards one particular person allegedly within the group chat: Mitesh Gandhi, whose spouse is a board member. Gandhi declined remark and referred The Publish to his lawyer, who mentioned he was shifting to dismiss the protecting order.
The vicious chat group was believed to be composed of 5 males, and allegedly included Chad Hyett, present Marlboro faculty board vp, in keeping with a supply. Many within the city of 41,000 at the moment are calling for Hyett's resignation.
Hyett, who in December filed a School Ethics Commission complaint towards Bellomo after she posted a part of a board electronic mail on social media, didn't return a message. The fee didn't substantiate Hyett's grievance.
Bellomo claimed Marlboro Colleges Superintendent Michael Ballone “wouldn't present safety” at a board assembly this week, after the textual content message controversy erupted.
“The district takes the protection and safety of all members of our faculty group very significantly,” Ballone mentioned. “We've a useful relationship with our native police division who attends our Board of Schooling conferences. This upcoming assembly can be no completely different.”
Marlboro's Democratic mayor, Jonathan Hornik, condemned the messages as “utterly unacceptable,” including, “these accountable are clearly not geared up to carry public workplace.”
“Violence and threats of violence towards public officers are seemingly turning into normalized,” he mentioned in a press release. “In only some months' time, we've got witnessed an alarming escalation in any such conduct to an excessive, culminating within the murders of Minnesota Consultant [Melissa] Hortman and activist Charlie Kirk. This should cease.”
In the meantime, the sleepy city of Marlboro, the place the typical house is priced at $850,000, has turn out to be a social media battleground.
“This man presents himself as a father and household man to the general public solely to then conduct himself like a pervert and legal on a bunch chat throughout a BOE Assembly,” wrote former board member Aldo Patruno of Semaya.
“That is disgusting on each stage,” one other on-line commenter mentioned.
“These grown males must be arrested for threats on one's life,” one other wrote on Instagram.
Semaya and Goldberg had been working on a purportedly apolitical slate referred to as Collaborators for Accountable Schooling, or CORE. The third candidate on the slate, longtime incumbent Michael Lilonsky, stays within the race. He didn't return a message.
Goldberg informed New Jersey's Patch.com she was abandoning her bid for the board as a result of she “at the moment can not decide to this function along with my different duties.”
