POSTED: 4:34 pm EDT October 28, 2005
UPDATED: 7:44 pm EDT October 28, 2005
NEW YORK -- A female administrator at a Manhattan Montessori school has been charged with the statutory rape and sodomy of a male
student who grew up to become a New York City police officer.
The alleged abuse lasted for several years, but began when the boy was 13 and the administrator, Lina Sinha, was a teacher at the school,
prosecutors said Friday.
Sinha, 38, surrendered to police Thursday and was charged with second- and third-degree sodomy and third-degree rape. Each charge relates
to an adult having sexual contact with a minor.
Sinha was arraigned Friday in Manhattan Criminal Court. Judge ShawnDya L. Simpson released her without bail on the condition that she give
up her passport. A prosecutor said Sinha has family ties in India and could possibly flee.
Assistant District Attorney Florence Chapin asked the judge for a protective order against Sinha, and Simpson replied, "He's a police officer. If
he can't protect himself as a police officer, he needs to resign."
Sinha's lawyer, Henry Mazurek, called the charges against his client "absolutely false."
"In fact, they are preposterous," Mazurek said. "There was no sexual relationship between these two people."
Prosecutors said Sinha, now the director at the Montessori school on East 55th Street, began a sexual relationship with the boy in June 1996,
when she was 29.
Their encounters continued after the boy left the school and entered high school, prosecutors said. The affair lasted until the boy was at least 17,
according to a felony complaint.
The teacher and student had sex in the school van, inside the school, and in a school-owned apartment, prosecutors said.
They said Sinha could not be charged with improper sexual contact with the youth after he turned 17 because that is the age of consent in New
York State.
The student, now 22, reported the relationship to authorities a week before the five-year statute of limitations would have expired on Nov. 4.
Mazurek charged that the alleged victim, who has been a police officer for about a year, filed the complaint in retaliation against Sinha after she
complained to authorities that he had hit her during an argument.
The prosecutor, Chapin, confirmed that an assault claim had been made, but said an investigation had determined that it was "wholly without
merit."
The case is due back in court Jan. 26.
http://www.wnbc.com/news/5199610/detail.html?rss=ny&psp=news
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Guv'mint
Skoolin'
"DUHMAG.COM"
2005
