A horrified mother went to police after discovering the nanny she had hired for her daughters spent a fortnight showing them pornography, teaching them about sex and kissing her boyfriend.
Helen Leah Ferriolo, 40, was supposed to care for the two sisters, ages eight and 10, along with their 10-year-old friend, at the North Haven, Connecticut, home.
Instead, they were locked in a closet and endured weeks of sexualized behavior, lewd comments and lessons in masturbation and oral sex, an affidavit states.
Ferriolo repeatedly masturbated in front of the children and then demanded that a girl smell his fingers.
He also grabbed her breasts, asked her to ‘pose sexy’ in a swimsuit and put her hands behind her back to make her watch a porn video.
Helen Leah Ferriolo, 40, has been charged with four counts of risk of injury to a minor, three counts of second-degree unlawful restraint and a single count of fourth-degree sexual assault.
She invited her boyfriend Tim McNulty to the house without the parents’ knowledge and regaled the children with details of the couple’s sex life.
The girls revealed their ordeal to their horrified families after Ferriolo was fired for repeatedly failing to show up for work.
The girls’ aunt recorded a call in which she confronted the babysitter about her behavior and pretended to have a recording of their sexualized conversations.
Ferriolo claimed that the girls had initiated conversations before admitting that he was sorry and should apologize to them.
“I probably shouldn’t have said what I said,” he reportedly confessed.
The Wallingford nanny started working for the family on July 15, taking the girls to spend days at the beach in nearby East Haven.
“You have big tits, the boys are going to love you,” she told one of the 10-year-old boys while she was changing.
On a second visit, Ferriolo ‘started touching and rubbing (her) breasts,’ before the girl pushed her away.
The babysitter also took her boyfriend Tim McNulty swimming in the family pool without the parents’ knowledge.
“Leah and Tim were on top of each other while in the water and kissing,” the affidavit records.
‘Leah took off her swimsuit. He didn’t see anything else when they took off her swimsuit because he came in.’
The older sister was in a swimsuit at home when Ferriolo pulled out her phone and asked her to “pose sexy”, it is claimed.
The babysitter then took a second photo after the girl turned around, but the girl waited until Ferriolo left her phone unattended before deleting the photos.
She allegedly told the girl’s friend to wear a “more revealing” swimsuit and showed the girls a video of her and her boyfriend in bed immediately after having sex.
The eight-year-old girl also did not escape the babysitter’s attention and remembered her on the couch rubbing her breasts and groin under her clothes.
‘She advised her that she should try it, but she refused. (Ferriolo) also made lewd gestures in front of (the eight-year-old boy).
“She described one particular incident in which (Ferriolo) put her hands near her own mouth and moved them in a circular motion.”
The girl and her sister were repeatedly locked in a closet by their caregiver, who banged on the furniture to pretend there was an “intruder” in the house.
Ferriolo was fired on August 8 and the girls’ mother went to police on August 20 after they began to reveal what happened.
The girls repeated the allegations in interviews with North Haven police and the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.
The babysitter was arrested Friday and has been charged with four counts of risk of injury to a minor, three counts of second-degree unlawful restraint and a single count of fourth-degree sexual assault.
She has been released on $50,000 bail and is due to answer to the charges in Meriden Superior Court on October 3.
