House manager breaks into tenant’s house to sniff panties

by Staff writer

When Ashley Chase returned to her Manhattan studio apartment from the Hamptons after a holiday weekend, she couldn’t find a pair of purple lace bra she owned.

Soon the blonde 26-year-old financial analyst discovered her other undergarments were gone: a black and gold bikini top, a tan bra and a number of panties.

Before long, she had figured out a way to find out who was making her intimate apparel disappear, and her investigation in a very surprising turn of events led her to the building’s supervisor, José Cedillo, 32.

That July of 2015, Chase told the New York Post, “I also realized at that point that the underwear I had worn that weekend that were in the dirty hamper were also missing.”

Chase borrowed an old cell phone from her sister and loaded an app called Presence on it that activates the phone’s video camera when it detects motion.

As she was heading to Long Island again for Labor Day, Chase set the phone up near her front door. A few minutes later, she received an alert that her sister’s cell camera had been activated.

“He saw me leave,” she told the Post. “He saw me with my bag, and he knew I was heading out.”

The video confirmed her fears, showing Cedillo entering her apartment and disappearing into her bedroom. A few minutes later, he emerges holding one of her undergarments to his face.

“I don’t want to think about what he was doing,” Chase told the Post.

Chase called police and Cedillo was charged with “burglary as a sexually-motivated felony,” according to the paper.

The Post cited court filings saying that the house manager negotiated with the prosecutor and agreed to plead guilty if the case would be lessened to a panty raid.

“I went in today to look around,” he allegedly told police. “I took a pair of panties. I left. I went downstairs, I sniffed them, and I threw them in the garbage.”

According to the Post, the manager admitted that it wasn’t his first time. “I went in another time a few months ago,” he allegedly told police.

Cedillo was later set free on a $50,000 bond. His lawyer declined to comment to the Post.

Chase’s lawyer, Benedict Morelli told the paper that the young analyst plans to file a civil lawsuit against both the manager, the building owners and the management company.