FEARING THE WORST
Desperate hunt for missing S.I. teacher Hubby cuffed after admitting to abuse
Teacher Jeanine Cammarata, 37, was last seen Saturday. Her estranged husband Michael (inset), the father of two of her kids, has admitted to punching his wife in the face.
The estranged husband of a missing Staten Island teacher was in police custody Wednesday after admitting he punched her in the face shortly before her weekend disappearance — as investigators pored over video surveillance at his Queens apartment.
Michael Cammarata, 42, was charged with misdemeanor assault , stalking and harassment of his estranged wife, Jeanine Cammarata, 37, and was being held at the 120th Precinct stationhouse on Staten Island. By Wednesday night, NYPD officers were swarming his address in Far Rockaway, focusing on a second-floor apartment in the Arverne View Apartments and poring over surveillance video at the complex, while investigators grilled his girlfriend, sources told the Daily News.
Meanwhile, a chilling picture emerged of the Cammarata’s disintegrating marriage and a battered wife afraid for her life.
An increasingly petrified Jeanine Cammarata obtained an order of protection against Michael after he started stalking her by car — driving behind her with the headlights off on his vehicle, the woman’s landlord told The News.
And the couple had a history of domestic violence, with mother of three Jeanine afraid that her postal worker husband might someday kill her, sources told The News.
“It started escalating to the point, this is from Jeanine’s mouth, where he was following her, turning off the lights in his car and following her,” said Jose Perez, 48, to the Daily News. She got an order of protection. But Michael wasn’t following it at first so the cops had to address him again.
“She was like, ‘I don’t think the cops are paying attention to this because this guy is following me around all the time.’”
Jeanine Cammarata was last seen on Saturday night, two days before she and Michael were due back in a Staten Island courtroom in their contentious divorce. The misdemeanor charged stemmed from his admission that he slugged the 4-foot-11, 120-pound woman after the pair had sex when they last met, a police source said.
Jeanine told her current boyfriend that she was going over to see her ex and their children — but never made it home, cops said.
“I know she was afraid of him,” said her divorce lawyer, Eric Gansberg. “I was surprised to hear she agreed to the arrangement to visit the children. I found that shocking.”
Gansberg. said he was hired by Jeanine on Jan. 8, and she was “eager to proceed” with the divorce.
Jeanine sought the order of protection after the couple split, but later dropped it. In addition to tailing her car, Michael began sending her “very sexual, very aggressive” text messages, said landlord Perez.
Perez said he knew there was something wrong with his favorite tenant when his attempts to reach his downstairs neighbor in the two-story home were all unsuccessful.
“She would not just disappear,” he said. “She would have texted me, she would have given me some sign that she’s OK. But she has not. I called her in front of the police officer and she didn’t pick up.”
Perez said he heard the sound of glass shattering in a window, loud enough to wake him from a dead sleep, on the night of the disappearance.
The missing woman had taken Monday off from work for the scheduled Staten Island hearing that was postponed when she didn’t appear.
Investigators were unsure what to make of a series of cryptic messages sent from Cammarata’s phone in the hours after she vanished.
“I need a break,” read one of the Facebook messages sent from the woman’s phone to her roommate, according to police sources.
Cops are trying to ascertain the meaning of the text — and whether Cammarata or somebody else sent the bizarre missive to her worried friend.
Cammarata was last seen Saturday at about 9 p.m. after she dropped off her current boyfriend near Denker Place and McVeigh Ave in New Springville.
After Jeanine had been missing for more than 36 hours, roommate Jessica Pobega began receiving the texts from Cammarata’s cellphone.
When Pobega replied that she was going to call the police, she received the answer, “I don’t want that.”
Pobega wrote in a Facebook posting that she believed Jeanine did not send the messages. She told police that Cammarata does not use the Facebook Messenger app.
Police said the substitute public school teacher did not show up for work Tuesday at PS 29 in Castleton Corners. She also missed her shift at her second job at a nearby Dollar Tree store, sources said.
Cammarata’s car, a 2017 white Chevy Cruze with New York plate HSK8417 has yet to be found and was last tracked on Staten Island on Saturday, cops said. “If you see her or the car, call 911,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said in a tweet Wednesday.
Michael Cammarata’s gray Chrysler Town and Country left the borough Monday, but cops now have the van and are waiting on warrant to search the vehicle, sources said.
Jeanine has two children — a 3-year-old son and a 7-year-old girl — with her estranged husband and an older boy from a prior marriage. She separated from her Michael after he supposedly started dating a mother of a child in her classroom.
Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.