A New York teacher who was charged in 2011 with raping a male middle school student and plying him with drugs and alcohol is demanding that the city let her return to her teaching job, according to a lawsuit.
Claudia Tillery, 45, was acquitted of all criminal charges in April 2014 and argues in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court that Department of Education’s hearing officer improperly used sealed evidence, DNA tests and the prosecutor’s testimony to remove her from her teaching job.
In 2011, the then-sixth-grade humanities teacher at Stephen Decatur School in Brooklyn was accused to having a sexual relationship with a boy from as early as 2009, when he was just 12 years old.
She was charged with rape, unlawful dealing of drugs and alcohol to a child, sexual misconduct, sexual abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child.
Haydee Rosario, the Department of Education hearing officer said the acquittal doesn’t excuse the mother of two for ‘conduct unbecoming’ of her position, which she had held since 1996.
Rosario said that evidence showed that Tillery allowed the student into her home without permission from his parents or school administrators, according to the New York Daily News.
Tillery also reportedly took the boy to the Atlantic Motor Inn more than once and gave him $500 in cash.