A Maplewood City Council member forwarded an email this week with a subject line “Muslim’s” that contained pictures of topless women and a call for women to “Walk Naked for America Day.”

The email was received by a Pioneer Press reporter at 9:34 p.m. Thursday, April 27. Bob Cardinal, the most recent addition to the Maplewood City Council and former mayor, said he inadvertently included the reporter on the list when he forwarded the message, which he called “shocking,” from a personal email to a few guys on his softball team Thursday night. Cardinal said he disagreed with the email content.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Cardinal said of the message. “I don’t know how that even got on the Internet.”

The message was sent with the subject line “Muslim’s” with nothing appearing inside except the attachment. When opened, the attachment reveals a picture of four topless women under the heading “Walk Naked for America Day.”

It goes on to encourage “American hotties” to walk out of their houses naked at 1 p.m. eastern time next Saturday because “it is a sin for a Muslim male to see any woman other than his wife or daughter naked.”

The effort will “help weed out any neighborhood terrorists,” according to the email.

It closes by encouraging all “patriotic men” to gather on their lawns to watch.

Cardinal said that he received the email from a constituent he occasionally corresponds with and that he disagreed with its contents. He forwarded it on, he said, only because he found it so shocking.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw,” he said.

Cardinal beat former council member John Nephew in the November election. He campaigned against Maplewood’s decision to organize its trash-hauling system. He served as mayor for six years in Maplewood before losing to Diana Longrie in 2005.

Sarah Horner can be reached at 651-228-5539.