Fred Humphries sent topless picture to Jill Kelley from email account he shared with his wife

Special Agent Fred Humphries has been revealed as the face, and torso, of the “Shirtless FBI Agent” whose images were found in socialite Jill Kelley’s email account.

It was Frederick Humphries who initiated the investigation into harassing emails sent to Jill Kelley that ultimately led to the resignation of General David Petraeus.

Amid the heat of that exposure the news of his own apparent indiscretion was treated as another layer of sexual intrigue in this tangled tale.

In fact, Fred Humphries insists, it is nothing of the sort. The email was a joke that backfired more spectacularly than he could possibly have imagined and, perhaps, was allowed to.

The image in question was not some leering pose, directed at the object of his desire, but a round-robin joke – the sort of which the 47-year-old Special Agent was in the habit of sending – that ended with a picture punchline.

In stark contrast to the covert “dead drop” technique of Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus’s email correspondence, Fred Humphries’s message was sent from an account he shared with his wife, teacher Sara.

The snapshot showing Frederick Humphries – bald, muscular and shirtless – posed between two buff, bullet-ridden target dummies and carrying the punchline “Which one is Fred?” was framed and displayed on his wife’s desk at work. His supervisor even pinned it on the notice board in the Bureau.

In fact as the Seattle Times reports, one of the newspaper’s staff was among those to receive the email, sent in 2010 shortly after the Special Agent had been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to the Bureau’s Tampa office.

The email was sent on September 9, 2010. All of which points to the motivation of the sources that first leaked word of its existence being mischievous at best.

Because if not quite an Icarus figure fallen to earth, Fred Humphries reputation has certainly been allowed to wilt in the heat of the media glare.

According to the New York Times, Fred Humphries has a reputation as a “hard-charging” field agent. It is a turn of phrase that implies an approach more likely to earn results than friends.

Fred Humphries reportedly received a dressing down from his superiors when he impatiently tried to push forward the investigation into the emails received by Jill Kelley.