'Melissa Lincoln' gets fine for public nudity

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BY MARGARET REIST / Lincoln Journal Star

Getting a ticket for public nudity turned out to be the best publicity move Internet model Melissa Harrington ever made.

Lincoln police ticketed her in December after they found out she'd  taken off her clothes at a Lincoln bar, took pictures there and posted them on her Web site.

The story made local news and catapulted the "Melissa Lincoln'' site into one of the top 10 requested sites on the Lycos search engine.

Shortly after her brush with the law became public, she got more than a million hits on her site.

"The server crashed a few times,'' she said.

Not a bad problem for a budding  cyberspace model.

City ordinances prohibit public nudity and at the time, Police Chief Tom Casady made a point of saying police wouldn't tolerate businesses allowing such activity.

The owner of Marz Intergalactic Shrimp & Martini Bar was upset about what happened and said employees had no idea Harrington was posing nude.

Casady's point was not to provide Harrington with free publicity but her story hit newspapers and television stations from Canada to Germany.

And on Thursday, Court TV followed her into the Lancaster County courtroom where she pled no contest to the misdemeanor charge and got a $150 fine.

Harrington says she's received book and movie offers and people have asked her to be on music videos. She hasn't committed to anything yet.

At the time she was ticketed she was surprised at the attention. But not upset.
"Any publicity for the site is good publicity,'' she said.

The 22-year-old who graduated from Lincoln High School and now works fulltime for an insurance company said she had done some modeling before she decided to try posing nude.

She started her Web site — melissalincoln.com — and posed nude for various magazines including winning the "Girl Next Door'' award from a nude magazine two years in a row.

Now, she said, she's got another Web site and business is booming.

She tried nude modeling, she said, because she felt confident about her body and figured "why not.'' 

Now she figures she'll see where it takes her.

"It's gotten me this far so I'm going to keep doing it,'' she said.

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com