A Manhattan judge known for pro-teacher rulings may overturn the firing of a middle-school teacher accused of bedding her 12-year-old student because she says the city did not play fair.
Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger blasted the city Department of Education, saying it apparently used evidence sealed after teacher Claudia Tillery was acquitted in a criminal trial.
“I do agree that a teacher having a relationship with a 12-year-old boy, or a girl, is way, way, way beyond acceptable,” Schlesinger said in a hearing last week. “But they had no authority to unseal a sealed record.”
Tillery, who taught at MS 35 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was charged in November 2011 with rape, having repeated sex with a male student in her home and in a motel while plying him with liquor and marijuana and with giving him cash and gifts.
But a Brooklyn jury acquitted Tillery in April 2014 after her two kids and their homeless, schizophrenic father testified in her defense.
A mountain of evidence included the student’s video of Tillery putting her pants on, 8,000 text messages between the two and a DNA analysis finding both her and the kid’s saliva on her comforter.
The DOE then used the same evidence against Tillery in a hearing to fire her, calling them “official records.”
Schlesinger called Tillery’s underlying case “egregious and disgusting.” But she added: “It’s clear that no one ever went to court to get an [unsealing] order . . . And it probably would have been denied.”
The city would not say how it obtained the criminal evidence, but Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the Law Department, insisted, “All the evidence DOE used in its termination proceedings was obtained and used lawfully.”
Helen Peterson, a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, said, “We did not turn over any sealed trial evidence to anyone. The DOE had its own investigator collecting evidence independently.” An assistant DA testified at the DOE hearing under a subpoena, she added.
Schlesinger, who in 2012 overturned the firing of two female teachers caught trysting in a darkened classroom, has salvaged teachers’ jobs if she found the city violated rules in firing them.
“Alice is not one to let rapists and killers out on the street,” said Betsy Combier, a paralegal who defends accused educators. “But don’t violate procedure in front of her and don’t use information you shouldn’t have had. She’s not going to allow it.”
Schlesinger deferred her decision on Tillery until both sides submit additional written arguments.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Just the fact that she went to court for it in the first place should be grounds enough to fire her.
Exactly. If there was enough evidence for a grand jury to indict her, there was enough to fire her.
You are not constitutionally entitled to a certain job. They called witnesses who knew of the evidence.
If she is tenured, that's a whole nother thing. Without a criminal conviction, it's almost impossible to get fired...
Having sex with a student should do it - and you shouldn't need a criminal conviction. Even having sex with an 18 year old senior should get you fired b/c you are in a position of authority over them. Tenure should not protect you from this kind of thing. If it does - that needs to go.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Just the fact that she went to court for it in the first place should be grounds enough to fire her.
Exactly. If there was enough evidence for a grand jury to indict her, there was enough to fire her.
You are not constitutionally entitled to a certain job. They called witnesses who knew of the evidence.
If she is tenured, that's a whole nother thing. Without a criminal conviction, it's almost impossible to get fired...
Having sex with a student should do it - and you shouldn't need a criminal conviction. Even having sex with an 18 year old senior should get you fired b/c you are in a position of authority over them. Tenure should not protect you from this kind of thing. If it does - that needs to go.
I totally agree. But I believe tenure does in fact protect from this kind of thing...
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America guarantees equal opportunity, not equal outcome...
I hate to say it, but I can see the reasoning in this appeal. The original case was sealed. The school should have had no access whatsoever to the information.
However, firing shouldn't have been an issue because the teacher should have been in jail anyway. The fact that she didn't go to jail originally completely baffles me. Anyone want to bet that if it had been a male teacher and a female student with the same evidence the teacher would have had a long stay, at 'State Iron Bar Chalet'?
