PEARL RIVER, La. — A former Louisiana priest and two dominatrices were slapped with vandalism charges for having sex atop a church altar in September of last year, according to reports.
Travis Clark, 37, and two dominatrices, Mindy Dixon, 41, and Melissa Cheng, 28, were initially charged by police with obscenity following the alleged tryst last September inside Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Pearl River, NOLA.com reported.
But the St. Tammany Parish District Attorney’s Office on Friday announced lesser charges for the trio, who were arrested after a passerby saw them through a church window and reported them to police, according to court records obtained by the news organization.
The women were wearing corsets and high heels during the threesome, which was being recorded, according to the court documents.
Sex toys and stage lights were recovered at the scene by police, along with recording devices.
Rev. Travis Clark. (St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office)
Clark was the priest at the church at the time of arrest, Law Officer reported. Dixon is an adult film actress and works as a dominatrix, according to Fox. A social media post from Dixon the day before her arrest said she was going to New Orleans to meet another dominatrix and “defile a house of God.”
An attorney for Dixon and Cheng told NOLA.com that state prosecutors “overstepped their bounds” by bringing charges against them.
“It is clear the state went out of its way to contort the facts of this case in order to fit their own narrative,” attorney Bradley Phillips told the news organization.
“This [is] nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to regulate the morality of private individuals. Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t make it criminal. My clients look forward to their day in court as we continue to fight this baseless allegation,” he added.
The women told police at the time that they were at the church to film “roleplay” with the priest. Officers determined everything that went on that night was consensual, but initially arrested the trio on the obscenity charges because they were in view of the public, New York Post reported.
Clark was removed from the church the day after his arrest, the report said.
The church’s altar was burned and a new one was consecrated last October.
