NY- The FDNY groupie who sparked the infamous “Animal House” sex scandal has now been busted for offering an undercover cop $50,000 to kill her ex-husband, authorities said yesterday.
Jennifer Swanton, 35, also allegedly offered cocaine and sex to the vice squad officer who arrested her in a sting after she ran an ad on Internet site Craigslist offering her services, according to complaint filed in Bronx Criminal Court.
“I’ve had a messy divorce. Will you take care of my husband if I give you $50,000?” Swanton allegedly asked the cop on Dec. 1.
Last year, Swanton accused three on-duty firefighters of raping her on the floor of Ladder 33, the Bronx fire station long known as “Animal House.”
But Swanton later claimed the sex was consensual, and the Bronx district attorney’s office declined to prosecute the case.
Her ex-husband, Erik Swanton, told the Daily News yesterday he is frightened of his former wife and believes she has a mental disorder.
“This scares me to death,” he said. “I’m lucky she asked an undercover cop. If she found the right person, who knows what might have happened.”
Jennifer Swanton now faces a litany of charges, including felony criminal solicitation, prostitution and criminal sale of a controlled substance. She was arrested after meeting the undercover for sex in a Co-op City apartment.
But Jennifer Swanton surprised the cop by asking him to knock off her estranged husband.
She later offered him two Baggies of cocaine that she kept in a tan purse, saying, “I have the stuff, and [the dealer] he gave us a little extra.”
Erik Swanton, who has joint custody of the couple’s two kids, said he didn’t know about the alleged murder plot or prostitution allegations until yesterday. His wife didn’t show up at a Dec. 2 Family Court hearing, but he didn’t know why.
“She offered them money to kill me? Nothing surprises me,” he said. “I’ve had a feeling all along she was capable of something of like this.”
Jennifer Swanton also was arrested earlier this year for biting a cop who responded to her Staten Island home after an alarm went off.
Meanwhile, the scandal prompted Animal House Firefighter Tony Deluca, 35, to resign, and a state Supreme Court justice last month upheld the firing of Christian Waugh, 31. A third firefighter, Anthony Loscuito, 27, is suspended and awaiting an administrative hearing.