Nanny's nightmare
SI au pair: Boss menaced me over spy cam
A Staten Island dad secretly recorded “hundreds” of nude videos of his live-in nanny — then tried to break down her door as she cowered in fear after finding the hidden camera in her bedroom, she claims in a lawsuit.
The nanny, terrified that her employer might be armed with a gun, jumped out a window to escape, according to court papers.
Kelly Andrade, 25, “immediately” reported father-of-four Michael Esposito to cops, who arrested him March 24 on a felony charge of unlawful surveillance.
The Colombian native said she underwent hundreds of hours of training before being hired by Cultural Care Au Pair and coming to America, where the company placed her in the $800,000 waterfront Tottenville home of Esposito, owner of three LaRosa Grill franchises, and his wife, Danielle.
Speaking through an interpreter, Andrade told The Post that she had been excited about the job, which gave her a chance to learn English and embrace a new culture.
The Espositos gave her a bedroom to sleep in while she cared for their four young kids, but Andrade claims she kept catching Michael Esposito in her room, fiddling with a smoke detector on the ceiling, which “was constantly being repositioned,” her Brooklyn federal court suit charges.
Less than three weeks into the job, she examined the detector, finding a camera inside with a memory card filled with “hundreds of recordings,” most capturing her “nude and/or dressing/undressing,” the legal filing claims.
“Within minutes” of her discovering the camera, Esposito showed up at the house, according to the nanny and the court papers.
“He seemed very nervous, and he seemed very worried when he arrived to the house,” she recalled.
Andrade pretended she was asleep to get Esposito to leave, but he was “banging on the door” and she entered “fight or flight mode,” she said. “I needed to get away,” she said. She hurt her knees in the leap from her first-floor window, over an above-ground basement.
“I ran until I got far enough, where I felt safe enough to stop,” she said, adding she looked online with her phone for the nearest police station, where she reported the incident and handed over the memory card.
“I felt very afraid,” she said. “On top of what had just happened, now I don’t have a place to stay. I’m in a completely unknown country. I’m alone. I don’t have any money. I don’t know what I’m going to eat. I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow.”
Cultural Care Au Pair did nothing to help, charges Andrade, who said being secretly filmed and losing her employment left her “suicidal.”
“We’re alleging that Cultural Care had a responsibility for her safety,” said her lawyer, Zachary Holzberg.
Esposito was released on his own recognizance. At the time of Esposito’s arrest, his lawyer said the cameras were installed for security reasons and not placed in a bedroom or dressing room, according to the Staten Island Advance.
Andrade is suing the Espositos and Cultural Care for unspecified damages, claiming discrimination and a hostile work environment.