Tatyana Remley, a splashy blonde who would not have looked out of place on “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” walked into the Solana Beach, Calif., Starbucks and turned heads.
Among a well-dressed clientele, the 5-foot-11, 125-pound 43-year-old wore a tank top and sweat shorts. Her companion was a thuggish-looking dude who sported sunglasses, a sideways hat and baggy shorts.
“You could tell something was up,” a worker there told The Post, revealing new details in a scandal that has shocked and entranced SoCal society and which encompasses claims of elite orgies, guns, and a threat taken straight from “The Godfather.”
“She might have been trying to achieve a sexual look, but I would not call her sexy,” the worker added. “She looked like she was strung out on something.”
And that was before anyone in the Starbucks knew Remley had arrived to discuss paying her companion $2 million to murder her husband, Mark Remley.
They each ordered a mango dragon-fruit refresher and headed to a table on the rear patio. After about 10 minutes, the “thug” went to the restroom, two cop cars pulled up and four San Diego police officers beelined to the patio.
“They rushed back there, had her handcuffed and started going through her bag,” the worker recalled. “The officers were efficient and walked her to a cruiser. It took off. But the thuggish guy was still in the bathroom.”
The worker, slightly panicked by the “thug” being left behind, went outside to notify the pair of remaining police officers.
“One of them told me, ‘Don’t worry, he’s with us, that’s all I can tell you,’” the worker recounted. “Then an SUV with blackened windows pulled up and the thuggish guy went into it. He was an undercover cop.”
This arrest was the final unraveling in a tumultuous and allegedly violent 12-year marriage between Tatyana, said to be a compulsively sexual Russian bombshell, and her husband, Mark, who had inherited $26 million from his parents.
How they first met is unclear. Their relationship featured a mélange of fast cars, alleged drug use, guns and a blown fortune — and was now in splitsville.
Mark reportedly bankrolled iffy business ventures that Tatyana wanted to get going. Among them: a performing horse show called Valitar (likened to Cirque du Soleil with horses), a cycling studio called Rhythm and Power, and a polo team. All are now kaput.
In terms of what Mark actually did to earn money, it seems vague. LinkedIn describes his occupation as “president.”
His father, according to multiple sources, found success in the world of technology and is said to have held valuable patents, some of which wound up with Mark. The couple shared a $5.3 million home in tony Del Mar, Calif., beside the Del Mar Polo Fields.
Clearly, money did not buy happiness for 57-year-old Mark, who, according to a pal, “looked 77” in the wake of his wife allegedly trying to have him murdered.
“Their lifestyle was reckless; it was toxic,” a friend of Tatyana’s told The Post. “They were both having sexual relationships with all kinds of other people. There were prostitutes, strippers, sex clubs.”
Indeed, in the first episode of the 2017 Showtime series “Naked SNCTM,” about the elite sex club, Mark and Tatyana Remley can be seen hanging out with fellow swingers. Staring into the camera, Tatyana cooed, “I’m all about pushing limits…”
Later, Mark said, “Sex is probably the biggest part of our lives.”
Underscoring the point, Tatyana engaged in sex acts with a variety of women in the documentary as Mark could be heard stating, “I’m kind of an adrenaline junkie. I love to take risks and I love to live on edge.”
Sources told The Post that she “slept her way” through their neighboring polo club and was “targeting rich men.”
By July, the Remleys’ marriage hung on the brink of dissolution. On July 2, Tatyana filed for divorce. In the divorce papers, she maintained that friends of her husband “[broke] my expensive horse statue in the yard and put the head of the horse in my bed, Godfather style.”
Video obtained by The Post and shot in late May at her house shows a cast horse’s head in her bed.
Nine days after she filed for divorce, the house caught on fire and burned to the ground. Tatyana claimed to have no idea what happened.
Following the fire, recalled Tatyana’s friend, “The police were called to the house. Officers asked for Tatyana’s ID and there were four loaded guns in her purse. Police arrested her for gun possession.”
Amazingly, that is not even the most shocking incident involving the couple and firearms. “Mark got arrested once,” said the friend, “because he was standing naked at the top of the driveway with an elephant gun. He had come after her with a knife and she had to run out of the house in her underwear.”
Then there are claims in the divorce report that Mark “put a gun to [Tatyana’s] head.”
It was far from the only police call. After the arrest in Starbucks, a California Highway Patrol officer told the Starbucks worker how he turned up at the Remley residence in response to a noise complaint from a neighbor.
“[Tatyana] was completely disheveled but she had the ritziest horse trailer,” said the officer. He was likely referring to her Lakota Longhorn, which, according to the divorce record, has a fair market value of $135,000.
Erik Martonovich, who worked with the couple, around 2012, on the failed horse performance troupe, last heard from them in 2017. A friend told him that “Tatyana wanted me to come down and sleep with her while Mark watched.” Martonovich is not surprised by the ruthless plan that Tatyana is alleged to have been part of.
“I believe she would try to kill him,” Martonovich told The Post. “She is volatile and cold. I don’t know if she thought she would get his money. She is not bright. I think she did it because she thought she would get paid.”
In the divorce report, Tatyana claimed to be “in dire need of support.”
Now she is accused of a murder-for-hire plot which, it is alleged, began when a hitman was referred to her by a man who happened to be friends with Tatyana’s husband.
The friend who had discussed killing Mark allegedly squealed to the would-be victim about what his wife planned; Mark reported it to the police and the sting operation went into motion.
Even before the bitter split, according to Martonovich, the relationship was a little offbeat. He remembers a cast party for the equestrian show when Tatyana did something that may have demonstrated the tenor of their relationship.
“At the party, she had a belt around Mark’s neck and led him by the belt for a chunk of the night,” recalled Martonovich. “She made people give him lap dances. He didn’t love it.”
But, as Martonovich saw things, Tatyana was used to getting her way. “His entire personality was built around doing whatever she wanted,” said Martonovich.
“If she wanted to do something, he would pay for it. Money didn’t matter. He did whatever she wanted and paid for it. I saw him lose [millions on the equestrian project].”
Some of what she wanted, according to her friend, was to watch Mark as he had sex with other women. “There was the night that Mark and her former love interest brought home an entire strip club,” remembered the friend. “That was par for the course. She enjoyed him with other women but only when it was under her control.”
That night it was anything but. “The women were going through everything, just ransacking all of her things,” said the friend. “They went for her Louboutin shoes and bags.”
In the divorce filing, Tatyana claimed that “$250,000 of property was stolen or destroyed,” including “animals, clothing, my cars and motorcycles.” The animals were three silky fainting goats — Milky Way, Milk Shake and Milk It — and three parrots, including Ada, an African gray, and Calculator, an Amazon red.
These days, Mark seems to be lying low and not taking calls from the media. Tatyana is locked up in Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee, Calif., awaiting a hearing in October. She has pleaded not guilty to solicitation of murder.
The horseman Martonovich is not exactly busted up over how far south everything went. “I knew them well,” he told The Post. “They were a–holes and karma is a bitch.”
