Council candidate Morales denies posting hateful Facebook messages

A Democratic party-backed city council candidate, accused of posting racist, anti-gay, anti-poor messages on Facebook, said his page had been hacked.

Manny Morales denied ownership of all of the 60+ posts, published on a website by his opponent – incumbent Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez.

"Anything that you find from my Facebook that has to do with any type of derogatory comments, have never been from me," Morales said in a phone interview.

Quinones-Sanchez published screen-grabbed images of posts she said came from Morales' Facebook page on a website, meetmannymorales.com. They included derogatory statements about black, gay, and poor people and dozens of ultra-conservative political leanings, which Quinones-Sanchez have said do not align with Democratic values.

Morales said he's weighing his legal options.

Before Morales took the Facebook page down he said he posted a message addressing the allegations.

Further down from that post were some of the objectionable messages but Morales said those messages – which range from 2010 to 2014 - were not posted by him.

Morales said he took down the Facebook page because he realized it had been hacked.

"I'm not leaving the race and we will win on May 19," Morales said. "I've actually been g etting a lot of support – she's being a good campaign manager."

Sanchez on Tuesday said Morales needed to "own up to the bigoted and hateful language." She again called on the Democratic Party to rescind its endorsement.

"Baseless character attacks against me won't change the truth about what he said and the radical views Manny Morales has supported. I welcome further scrutiny because it will only serve to further confirm his outrageous statements," she said. "It also defies logic for Manny Morales to claim he never made these bigoted postings even after taking down his Facebook page yesterday. What does Manny Morales have to hide?"

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