Pageant denies Miss Pennsylvania's claims

LAS VEGAS, June 6 (UPI) -- The Miss Universe Organization has denied a contestant's claims its recent 2012 Miss USA pageant was fixed.

ABC News said Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin quit the organization this week, alleging a fellow contestant told her she knew who the pageant's final Top 5 were going to be before the show took place Sunday.

"I witnessed another contestant who said she saw the list of the Top 5 BEFORE THE SHOW EVER STARTED proceed to call out in order who the Top 5 were before they were announced on stage," Monnin, 27, said on her Facebook page. "After it was indeed the Top 5 I knew the show must be rigged; I decided at that moment to distance myself from an organization who did not allow fair play and whose morals did not match my own."

But the organization denied Monnin's allegations Tuesday, ABC News said, noting Monnin had sent state pageant organizers an e-mail citing the Miss Universe Organization's policy allowing transgendered contestants, implemented two months ago, as the reason for her resignation, the pageant said in a statement to E! News.

"Today she has changed her story by publicly making false accusations claiming that the pageant was fixed, however, the contestant she privately sourced as her reference has vehemently refuted her most recent claim," the pageant's statement said.