She took ‘Desperate Housewives’ to new level, say W’chester cops
A dominatrix ruled over a dungeon for “submissives and slaves” on a private estate in a ritzy Westchester County town – and sold sex on the side, police said yesterday.
Sandra Chemero, 46, a buxom brunette who swaddled herself in fur, was collared and charged with prostitution after she allegedly offered her kinky services to a cop.
Police who raided the Victorian farmhouse in Bedford – home to the rich and famous – found a stun gun among the S&M equipment, which included paddles, whips and bondage racks.
A makeup artist who briefly worked at the Haines Road home said she began to suspect something illegal was going on when she learned Chemero was paying $3,000 a month in rent.
“I thought, ‘That’s a lot of beating you gotta be doing in 30 days,'” the woman told the Daily News.
The beautician and costume designer said she never saw Chemero’s clients – except for one man who wanted a French maid getup. She said she cut her ties to the mistress months ago.
“I never saw anything … I stay clear of anything like that,” she said. “But [Chemero] was too mysterious.”
Chemero rented the two-story white clapboard house – which sits back from the road on a 4-acre spread in the hamlet of Bedford Hills – from a neighboring yeshiva in June.
Behind the quaint black shutters, Chemero transformed the house into an S&M fantasyland called the Sovereign Estate and began advertising on the Internet.
“The Sovereign Estate is a full-time 2-4/7 environment where submissives and slaves are immersed in training,” she gushed in gold script on a regal blue background on her Web site.
She described herself as an “elegant, attractive, dominant woman” who is “devoted to female superiority, proper training and etiquette for the betterment of men.”
Photos showed the New Milford, Conn., native posing in a tight black-vinyl bustier and with a hairy-chested man sporting clothespins on his nipples and a leash.
Her answering machine promised that “the Sovereign Estate uses the utmost discretion when returning your call.”
Photos of a red-and-gold room in the basement showed a wooden rack against a wall with straps for tying up clients and a chilling array of flogging and spanking devices.
Being a dominatrix is legal in New York, and there was no mention of prostitution on the Web site – but, apparently, word got out.
In December, the Bedford Police Department received an anonymous letter complaining about the goings-on at the house and pointing investigators to the Web site.
A sting operation was set up, and an undercover officer posing as a client met Chemero, who allegedly made a date to have sex with him for money.
She was arrested Tuesday and charged with prostitution and weapons possession, both misdemeanors. She was released and is due in court on March 8.
The bust shocked the genteel and wealthy community, where Martha Stewart, Chevy Chase, Glenn Close, Ralph Lauren, Billy Baldwin and Chazz Palminteri all have homes.
But no one was more surprised than the teachers and students at the Kahal Hadas yeshiva, which unwittingly rented the property to Chemero through a broker.
“We were dazed. We didn’t believe it. We didn’t know such a thing even exists,” said a teacher at the school who gave his name as Rabbi Samuel.
“This is a calamity. When we heard, we said, ‘Get out of here, go away from here.'”
