A New York court has awarded $2.7 million to Kelly Andrade, a live-in nanny, who was being filmed for weeks by her millionaire boss through a secret camera embedded in her room’s smoke detector.
Her boss Michael Esposito (35), owner of three LaRosa Grill franchises secretly captured her nude on the camera for three weeks before she realised something was wrong.Andrade migrated from Columbia to look after Esposito and his wife Danielle’s four children.
According to reports she was hired in 2021 by placement firm Cultural Care Au Pair and lived with Danielle’s parents in Tottenville on Staten Island as the couple’s mansion was under renovation.
Yahoo News reported that Andrade grew suspicious after she saw her boss frequently adjusting the smoke detector in her room. According to the lawsuit, she regularly caught Esposito in her room, messing with the ceiling smoke detector which “was constantly being repositioned,” the report said.
Andrade discovered a tiny camera inside the smoke detector herself, three weeks after it was set there. The memory card was filled with “hundreds of recordings,” many capturing her “nude and/or dressing/undressing,” the lawsuit said.
Esposito reportedly showed up at the house minutes after the camera was discovered. “He seemed very nervous and he seemed very worried when he arrived at the house,” Andrade said.
Jumped out of the window
Esposito kept “banging on the door”, but Andrade pretended to be asleep,” the report said adding that fearing that he may be armed, Andrade jumped from the first-floor window to get away. She hurt her knees in the process and spent the rest of the night in a bush on the street.
She handed the footage to the police a day later reported The New York Post. Esposito was arrested on March 24, 2021.
Unhappy with sentence
Andrade is not happy with the verdict, Esposito was ordered to undergo counselling and satisfy two years probation. He was also ordered to pay US$780,000 in emotional distress damages as well as US$2 million in punitive damages — totalling $2.8 million.
His former employee feels this is only a slap on the wrist.
“It’s not enough for the whole situation I’ve been through these three years. It’s not enough,” Andrade told The Post. “I was angry because the damage that he caused me is irreversible.
