US clown resigns over sexual misconduct allegations

A man who played a well known circus clown in America has acknowledged he pressured a teenage girl acrobat into posing for pornographic pictures and has resigned, the New York Times reported.

The latest man to fall amid the country's wave of sexual misconduct scandals is Barry Lubin, 65, who performed as a clown called Grandma for the Big Apple Circus, the Times said late Tuesday.

Lubin admitted in a statement that in 2004 he pressured then 16-year-old Zoey Dunne into posing for porn pictures, the paper said.

"What I did was wrong, and I take full responsibility for my actions," Lubin said in a statement, the Times reported.

Lubin resigned Friday after the circus received the accusations from Dunne.

Dunne first contacted the circus about Lubin in 2012 but at the time he had left that show.

But three months ago Dunne, now 29, learned on Facebook that Lubin was back with the circus.

"I saw this ad that said 'Grandma is back!,'" the Times quoted Dunne as saying, "and I almost threw up on the bus."