Manny Morales fights back

Manny Morales is in for the fight.

The City Council candidates accused of posting racist, antigay and anti-poor messages on his Facebook page, said at a Friday news conference that he is staying in the 7th Councilmanic District race.

"We will continue doing like we did with our petitions," Morales said. "Knocking on doors and visiting every single person in the district."

Morales lost the Democratic City Committee's endorsement Thursday in light of the Facebook scandal that broke earlier in the week.

A website was created by incumbent Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez, who Morales is trying to unseat, shows screenshots of dozens of offending comments and pictures found on his Facebook page.

Some of the posts were verified by the Inquirer before Morales deactivated his Facebook page Monday. One was a photo comparing a black man jaywalking to an animal using an overhead walkway that included this comment said to be from Morales: "This shows who is an animal? Awesome picture."

Morales has consistently denied the posts were created by him.

"They are not my views and I did not make those postings," Morales said Friday.

Asked when he believes the hacking occurred or which post on his Facebook timeline was the first one to have been altered with, Morales said:

"First of all no one has mentioned hacking," Morales said. "People could screenshot something and alter whatever it is by making copies of it."

His campaign said it had launched an internal investigation into the matter. Campaign spokesman Michael Blackie didn't offer any details on the investigation other than to say it will look as far back as 2010.

He said that once the investigation is complete, the Morales campaign will offer the results to the public.

"We're going to spend the next 60 days banging on doors, meeting voters. We're moving on," Blackie said.

Morales also accused Quiñones Sánchez of having deceased people's names on her nominating petitions. Morales had copies of three petition signatures of people he said were no longer alive.

In response to Morales' allegations, Quiñones Sánchez said that she trusts the citizens who signed her petitions are "telling the truth about themselves."

"Manny Morales has only raised questions about three of those signatures - which represent less than a tenth of one percent of the total signatures we submitted," Quiñones Sánchez said. "What he is doing now is only an attempt to distract from his own record of hateful remarks." .

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