A Long Island banana mogul at the center of a deadly sex romp at a tony Midtown hotel lives a double life – married suburban dad and pillar of his community by day, but kinky party animal after dark, neighbors and law-enforcement sources said.
Kimberly Calo, 41, a mom of two, died of an apparent drug overdose after a sordid three-way sex romp early Saturday morning at The Kitano involving fruit dealer Thomas Hoey, 40, and Nicole Zobkiw, 25, cops said. No charges were filed.
Hoey, a father of two, is always the first to help pay for block parties on his street in upscale Garden City, residents said.
The owner of Long Island Banana Corp., he is also a major contributor to a local nursery school.
“They’re very generous people,” neighbor Rich Stubben said of Hoey and his wife.
But Hoey is also a regular at the high-end Kitano, swaggering around like he was “king of the world,” a worker there said. Another employee described Hoey as an “obnoxious drunk” who was ejected from the hotel in November.
“He would flirt with every woman in the hotel,” said another worker. “He was shameless because while he was doing this, he would take calls from his wife and kids.”
Hoey told cops he wasn’t in the room when Calo collapsed, but returned to find her lying on a couch.
Zobkiw told authorities she had slept with Hoey, then walked out when the banana man turned his affections to Calo, because “she didn’t want to watch,” a source said.
When Zobkiw came back, Calo was “shaking and frothing,” she said. Zobkiw tried to call 911, but said Hoey hung up, telling her he would call a “doctor friend,” the source said.
The doctor, she said, later told her, “That girl is f- – -ing dead.”
An autopsy conducted yesterday was inconclusive, but more tests will be done.
Calo, who ran a gym in Glen Head, had drugs in her purse, which cops believe could be cocaine, police sources said.
Hoey brushed aside questions yesterday, telling a reporter, “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
Zobkiw did not respond to a telephone message.
A Florida relative of Calo’s said the woman had been married about 10 years and divorced last year.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Matthew Nestel and Selim Algar