House Sitting?

A Whole Lot More Than That Just Went on in East Hampton

By Dan Rattiner

There’s a couple who live on Middle Lane in East Hampton who are looking for a new house sitter. Or should be looking for a new house sitter. Their current house sitter, a woman of 34, was arrested last Thursday on sex, blackmail and extortion charges involving the Internet. She’s in jail.

According to the police, Shawn Payne used the name “Gina” to go onto the AdultFriendFinder.com site to look for men. She had a partner, a former boyfriend named Michael Largue, 45, who has a home in Franklin Square in Nassau County. At the same time she was looking, he was looking. This site bills itself as a site where casual romantic arrangements can be made. Michael Largue billed himself as “Mr. Nice.”

Payne and Largue kept in touch. What they were looking for, because this had been all worked out ahead of time, were vulnerable men and women who were going through a divorce. When Michael would locate a woman on Long Island, he would arrange to meet her. When Shawn would locate a man on Long Island, she would arrange to meet him. Ultimately, if things developed the way these two hoped, there would be an emotional attachment formed, followed by a meeting somewhere. And though this would lead to sex, the important part of the early meetings focused on how much money this desperate person had available to them in their bank accounts, a conversation that usually went that way when the new couple talked about the pending divorce and how it was all going to be divided up.

Those poor folks who had no money to speak of were then dropped by Payne and Largue, and the others followed up on. And now, amidst the sex and intimacy, the cameras rolled. Payne would secretly videotape the trysts involving Largue. Largue would secretly videotape the trysts involving Payne. Although for some there may have been a paid cameraman involved.

And then the sting would proceed. The existence of the videotape would be announced by telephone. If money was not quickly provided to Mssrs. Payne and Largue, this embarrassing videotape would be made available to their family. People paid.

It is not clear at this point how long this has been going on and whether or not the trysts took place in East Hampton or elsewhere, but what is known at this point, is that one man going through a divorce, a resident of Garden City, decided not to pay and instead simply called the Nassau County Police.

So then the cops went on AdultFriendFinder.com and set up their own sting. Offering up a male officer, they proceeded with the ruse until they could get a videotape of the officer handing Shawn Payne some money. She was arrested.

At this point, Ms. Payne told them about another victim, an upstate woman who had been having sex with Mr. Largue, and when they quickly went to see her and got her information, they closed in and arrested Mr. Payne in his basement apartment in Franklin Square, where, with a search warrant they found all sorts of photographs and videotapes involving a hundred or more sexual encounters that these two may have been involved with over the last two years.

Michael Largue, it turns out, has a police record, all of which involve outlandish and odd financial schemes. Largue grew up in Franklin Square, the son of a blue-collar worker who had a career as a Con Ed lineman.

In 1993, he was married and living with his wife in a Rockville Center co-op. But the co-op was in financial difficulty and was in danger of foreclosure. Largue and all the residents would lose their homes if the foreclosure went ahead, and so Largue went to see the others in the building, and said that he had contacted a retired Swiss banker who would lend them $1 million at 1 per cent interest to tide them over. All he would need was $39,400 in bank fees to make the arrangements. When the residents ponied up the money, Largue began delaying the inevitable. Finally when it was realized that there was no Swiss banker, the other residents went to the police, who arrested Largue and charged him with grand larceny. Largue pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 5 years probation and $73,350 restitution.

In 1994, Largue was part of a group of people that tried to buy the Hartford Whalers hockey team. The effort failed. Whether he pledged any money is not known, but that’s what you usually do when you join a group to buy a hockey team.

In 1998, Largue went to Edmonton, Canada as the man on the white horse who could save the Edmonton Oilers hockey team from going under. He was wined and dined by the Mayor of Edmonton, he looked at the team’s financial statements, and then left town — never to be heard from again. Ultimately, a local resident of that community bought and saved the team.

In 2001, Largue was arrested and charged with forgery. He spent 60 days in jail.

And in 2002 he tried to fraudulently take over control of his parents’ Garden City home.

Largue and Payne were arraigned and charged in a Nassau County courtroom on Friday. Each had a lawyer. The lawyer for Payne said that Payne was also a victim, and that Largue had videotapes made of her and him, and then using the tapes as incriminating evidence, forced her to join in with his AdultFriendFinder.com scheme.

The lawyer for Largue argued, when presented with these statements, that actually it was the reverse that was true. It will all come out at trial.

When people hire a nanny for their children, they make every effort to get references and talk to the references and almost always it turns out all right. They don’t take quite as much care when they hire a house sitter for their second home in the country. Keep the heat on, keep the pipes from bursting, clean and vacuum every once in a while. I don’t know what to say as a result of all of this. Maybe make sure you’ve turned off your computer hookup?