TOP television personality, Sampson Nanton, has all but confessed that X-rated photos, obviously taken with a cellphone camera, that are being circulated on the Internet were stolen from his personal computer.

Nanton, the Assignment Editor at Cable News Channel Three (CNC3) issued a statement last Monday evening, in response to a query from TnT Mirror about 14 photos that had been e-mailed to just about every newsroom in the country.

The 29-year-old reporter, who was CNC3’s journalist of the year 2005 and who has disgraced his staunch Seventh Day Adventist family, is obviously proud of his “penis” and had several close up shots of his “member” from an angle which made it look huge and threatening.

One of the two young women starring in the cellphone porn -- whom Nanton admitted to dating “on separate occasions over the past three years -- is the former girlfriend of a national footballer.

The other woman has been identified as an employee of CL Financial, who is supposedly a staunch Roman Catholic.

She is said to be literally eating nails since the photos began circulating a few days ago.

She is featured, topless, with a cellphone in her hand, in the last of the 14 photos.

“Sampson has a fetish for X-rated photos,” an angry woman told Mirror, one day after the photos reached our office.

“And that is why he’s in trouble for the second time in his career,” she observed.

“He did not learn his lesson a few years ago when he was forced to leave his job at the Newsday’s Tobago office for a similar kind of behaviour.

“In fact, it passed off as a joke because he has grown “bigger” in the business with his face on television everywhere and he does not care about that!”

“He was bound to get caught and this time he’s trying to say that folks at his office are trying to set him up.

“Sampson apparently found himself in the same situation as Dr. Tim Gopeesingh recently.

“It was a straight case as hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (or horned).

SAMPSON NANTON in the throes of ecstacy.

SAMPSON NANTON gets a good work out.

The hot action is recorded on the cellphone.

... and the “starboy” now basks in glory of his
sexual prowess.

SAMPSON NANTON at the Bmobile concert last
month.

“A jilted lover knew that he had these -- among other pictures -- on his laptop, which he had in the office and she downloaded them, just to spite him,” the aggrieved woman noted.

However, Nanton, in a statement, claims that he is “aware of the pictures purporting to be me and at least two persons who I dated on separate occasions over the past three years.

“The matter has engaged my attention for the past two weeks and it is one that I have already discussed with the management of my company and the police,” the statement continued.

“It was clear from the onset that there was a deliberate attempt by some of my co-workers to discredit my character and to tarnish my image to the extent that it would threaten my career as a journalist, which, as of Saturday September 16, 2006, spans a period of 10 years,” he said.

Nanton confessed: “These private photos were copied from a personal computer and placed on a website apparently by someone who shares the sole agenda as I mentioned above to be used as a threat against me.

“It was no surprise to me that they made their way around via e-mail only after the issue was drawn to the attention of my managers and the police, as clearly the apparent objective of holding me to ransom was no longer feasible.

“The matter is at this time still attracting the attention of the police and my attorneys.

“It is unfortunate that in the circumstances, the characters of other people were also made to suffer, but as a journalist I am first to recognise that the actions of those who have gone to these lengths to smear my character reflect a wider culture of small -- mindedness and immaturity to which most of us have become accustomed.

“Unfortunately for me, it is a burden I must bear and I will do so a stronger person than I have ever been and thankfully, with the support of those who have been tarnished by this act,” Nanton’s statement ended.

Meantime, according to an entry on Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopediia, Nanton was given a two-week suspension from CNC3 because of the incident.

When contacted for comment on the issue, CNC3 Head of News Rosemary Sant directed our inquiries to the station’s General Manager, Cyntra Achong.

However, numerous attempts to reach her, as well as Managing Director Grenfell Kissoon on both her office and mobile phones proved futile up to Press time.

Mirror has been made to understand that the Board of Trinidad Publishing Company (CNC’s parent company) met in emergency session on Tuesday, when the issue of the X-rated photos was discussed.

It was reportedly decided at that meeting that Nanton be sent on vacation leave for a month “or at least until things cool down,” according to the source.