City Hall issues cease-and-desist order against Chicago sex dungeon

Three years ago, a Chicago woman admitted running a high-end brothel known as the city’s “premier Dungeon” that apparently boasted thousands of clients and collected more than $1 million.

Jessica Nesbitt, also known as “Madame Priscilla Belle,” pleaded guilty to a prostitution conspiracy revolving around her West Side business known as Kink Extraordinaires, where her attorneys said her 9,000 clients included people holding “positions of prestige in the community, including in law enforcement and government.”

Now, Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection has at least temporarily shut down another business operating as a “sex dungeon” in an attempt to determine where it fits in the city’s licensing code and whether allowing it to resume operations would have a negative impact on the community.

“You can rent the space…as a couple. You can bring in your friends…You can go take pictures. You can rent space for special events or whatever you want to do in that area. It’s multi-use. But, it’s all around sexual activity,” Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Commissioner Ivan Capifali told the Sun-Times.

“They’re very responsible business owners. They’re not irresponsible. They came to us. They were very honest and transparent with us and we appreciate that. They explained their business model to us. There’s a lot of activities they want to do. We issued a cease-and-desist order until we can figure this out.”

Capifali refused to identify the name or location of the alleged sex dungeon, nor would he pinpoint the Chicago neighborhood.

He would only say that the business is seeking to operate in a grey area of the city’s business licensing code that “doesn’t fall into just one license category.”

“We’re trying to figure out what to do. It’s actually making us think a little bit. We’re looking at the code to see where that lands,” he said.

The cease-and-desist order is temporary.

How long it lasts and whether Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration will seek to strengthen the code to make the shutdown permanent will depend on the investigation now under way.

“We want to make sure that we know what they’re doing and there is a value to the community. Make sure this is not gonna cause a problem to the community. This is not something that’s going to be seen as a crime. It’s just a complicated situation,” the commissioner said.

It's not the first time a Chicago sex dungeon has made headlines.

When Nesbitt was first charged in 2019, her attorneys insisted she ran a legal business and paid her taxes. “Fetish-based eroticism is not unlawful,” defense attorney Barry Sheppard told the Chicago Sun-Times.

But the woman who called herself “Madame Priscilla Belle” subsequently admitted arranging for prostitution appointments with clients — and performing acts of prostitution herself — while charging rates of $300 to $1,000 per hour “depending upon the services provided.”

Nesbitt had advertised her services on her own website, kinkextraordinaires.com, as well as others like backpage.com and eros.com. Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Erika Csicsila said Nesbitt used email accounts to invite clients to sex and fetish parties with names like “Black Tie Bizarre” and “Halloween Mischief.”

Kink Extraordinaires has been described as “the premier Dungeon of Chicago.” Its website said it offered “beautiful, psychologically sophisticated Kinksters” who “play out of a private five-floor dungeon with multiple, fully equipped themed rooms.”

In 2024, the Sun-Times reported that Chicago Illusions, a sex dungeon that advertises “BDSM” services: bondage and discipline, dominance and submission and sadism and masochism had taken advantage of a Cook County program to give tax breaks to owners of small storefront building that also have apartments.

The owner of that kinky business used the program to cut his real estate taxes by 60 percent a year for a total tax savings of nearly $300,000.

It’s all because the building has a pair of four-room apartments upstairs. Those apartments allow the whole building to be taxed as residential property rather than commercial — at a sharply lower tax rate than businesses have to pay.

The apartments are leased by the operator of Chicago Illusions, according to records the property owner filed with Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi. The sex dungeon advertises “BDSM” services: bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism.

Anthony Vaughan, the dungeon’s operator, said he doesn’t use the apartments for his sex business, which he says is limited to the 1,450-square-foot ground floor retail space at 1210 W. Grand Ave.