OFF THE WIRE,
MORAL TOO THIS STORY BE CAREFUL WHAT HAVE IN YOUR PHONE!!!!
SCREWDRIVER
Sun-Times Media Wire
Romeoville - Bridget Polaski was brought in for questioning Aug. 26 as Romeoville police investigated a car vandalism, but Police kept her cell phone as part of the investigation. Now Polaski fears nude photos on her the phone will be misused.
"I'm just really upset about my pictures being all over the Internet, if that's where they end up landing," Polaski, 45, said of the seven or so nude cell phone photos that are now in police custody.
Polaski, a former stripper and club manager, said she is also worried by the prospect of the photos being digitally altered in such a way that it appears she is engaged in some depraved act.
"My daughter's 14. I'm concerned about that," she said.
Polaski lost her iPhone to the police Aug. 26 after they stopped her as she was walking home from the Weber Road Walmart with her friend Tess Mulay. The two women say Polaski was handcuffed and one of the officers "asked me if my boobs were fake or real," Polaski said. "Asked me straight out."
Polaski said she "is a size 3 with fake boobs," but still found it inappropriate to be questioned about her figure by the police.
The officers confiscated her cell phone, she said, and then took her to the police station where she was questioned for about two hours. While at the station, Polaski said she heard some cops in a hallway laughing it up about her "fully nude" photos.
Deputy Police Chief Mark Turvey said none of his officers looked at Polaski's pictures and that the phone was taken as part of probe into car vandalism.
"She's a suspect in a criminal damage to property investigation and the officer had reason to believe she had text messages on her phone related to the damage and some threats she had made," Turvey said.
After seizing the cell phone officers secured a search warrant and only then began checking for messages, Turvey said.
Even though Polaski faces no charges so far in connection with the Romeoville car vandalism investigation, she is fighting a pair of driving under the influence cases out of Joliet. One is from a felony arrest in June, the other a misdemeanor charge from March.
Polaski is confident she will be acquitted in both cases.
In the meantime, Polaski said she has called the police about her cell phone so often that she "should have been arrested for telephone harassment." Her requests to have the phone returned were rejected, she said, and a detective explained that it is now at a crime lab.
"Crime lab? What is this, CSI: Miami?" Polaski asked.
Polaski explained that she has the photos on her phone because "I had a couple ex-boyfriends ask me to send them a picture. I had my girlfriend Tess take some pictures so I could text them."
Now Polaski fears a lot more people than a couple of her ex-boyfriends will get an eyeful of her, and she is not too happy with her treatment by the police either.
"I'm very upset about my rights being violated," Polaski said.
"I will fight this to the bitter end," she said. "I will not give up. I'm tired of people messing with me, just because I'm blonde and halfway decent looking."
Polaski, who describes herself as a "very right-wing, conservative Republican," said she returned to the police station hours after she was released and tried to file a report for the theft of her phone and for sexual harassment allegedly suffered at the hands of the officers. She said the police would take neither report and refused to return her phone.
A week later, still without the phone or the sensitive photographs stored on them, Polaski says she remains determined to correct her situation.
"I don't like my rights to be violated," she said.
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