'Dominatrix' alleges bizarre sexcapade with cop

'Dominatrix' alleges bizarre sexcapade with cop

By ROB RYSER AND SHAWN COHEN
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: November 21, 2006)

GREENBURGH - In X-rated testimony as graphic as a porno flick, a former dominatrix yesterday described a bizarre sexual encounter in the woods she claims to have had with a town police officer.

"He wanted to go to a motel in the Bronx where I would defecate on him, but I told him I was uncomfortable going to the Bronx," testified the dominatrix, Gina Pane, 31, buttoned up in an olive-gray suit with her black hair pulled back in a bun. "I suggested that we go into a woody area. He was very excited."

The officer, she testified, performed a sexual act as she finished.

The explicit testimony by Pane marked the start of the criminal trial of Police Officer Erik Ward, who was arrested in March on a misdemeanor charge of official misconduct.

Ward has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer said the officer did nothing sexual or inappropriate in the woods, but was recruiting the dominatrix to be a confidential source for narcotics investigations.

Ward looked at his accuser with calm expressions yesterday in Town Court. A woman he described as his longtime girlfriend sat behind him, along with a half- dozen fellow officers who, one said outside the court, wanted to support him.

Pane, who has filed papers to sue the Greenburgh Police Department for $2 million, claimed she agreed to the alleged kinky sex act in hopes of getting an earlier marijuana-possession charge dismissed.

"I 100 percent believed that if I did not do this, he would not help me with my case," Pane said, describing the alleged encounter in a Greenwich, Conn., nature preserve on Jan. 22 - a day after she was accused of smoking marijuana in a parked car and arrested.

The trial began with both lawyers promising clear-cut cases.

The defense lawyer, Andrew Quinn, said Ward was interested only in recruiting Pane as an informant, having her set up a meeting with a cocaine dealer she knew so police could intercept him.

Quinn said the case would hinge on whose word was more credible - a police officer or a dominatrix.

Assistant District Attorney Gwendolyn Galef said, however, that Ward knew the rules about developing a confidential informant and broke them to gratify his own defecation fetish.

Among the evidence the prosecutor presented was the dominatrix's own feces, which was tested in a lab. There was also video surveillance that, it was alleged, showed Pane and Ward in a parking lot before their alleged sexual encounter, along with matching samples of mud taken from his Jeep and the woods.

The dominatrix bore a corporate appearance as she walked into court. She was dressed in a conservative, buttoned-up suit, with a high, white collar, and she was not wearing earrings, eye makeup or lipstick.

"I have an economics degree from Manhattanville," she said.

Pane said she stopped being a dominatrix in January, following her arrest and the ensuing notoriety that made it difficult for her to get clients or pursue her main goal of working for a hedge fund.

Pane is now a receptionist at a financial firm. But under questioning from the prosecutor, she described exactly what she did as a dominatrix, including cross-dressing, spanking, foot fetishes and role playing. On a Web site, she advertised herself as "angelabella" and offered her services for a wide variety of sadomasochistic acts - a job she had held, on and off, for 10 years.

Pane said she was in the parking lot of the Greenburgh Multiplex Cinemas, waiting to watch "War of the Worlds," when officers approached her car and saw a host of dominatrix-related props in the back seat, including hypodermic needles for "play piercing."

"They asked me if I was a dominatrix and I said, 'Yes,' " Pane said. "Five minutes later Erik Ward showed up. He said the reason the officers called him was because they knew what he was into."

For the next 30 minutes, Pane testified that Ward spoke to her about his coprophilia, and about getting her charges dropped in exchange for setting up drug dealers.

The day after her arrest, she agreed to meet the officer in a conference center parking lot.

"He wanted me to meet someone and buy cocaine and I knew a person," Pane said. "But then the conversation flipped ..."

They ended up in the nature reserve, where, it is alleged, he masturbated as she squatted on a branch.

She decided to file a complaint several days later, after she and her mother went to retrieve her impounded car from Greenburgh police. An officer who saw her asked, "Isn't that angelabella?"

Pane cursed the officer, then started crying; she said her mother had no idea she was a dominatrix and didn't know about her confrontation with Ward.

"I live in a traditional Italian household," she explained.

Pane said she broke down and told her mother everything, and her mother urged her to report it.

Ward was subsequently suspended from his job and he faces an administrative hearing before the Town Board that could result in his dismissal.

The criminal trial resumes Tuesday.