NYC Child Abuse Case

[NorthernZel]

So, a story happened on my local media which I'd like to get your opinion on (no links provided, priorly that all the links I have are in Danish, secondarly 'cuz I'd like an unbiased view on this):

There's this guy T, doing an internship at a preschool in NYC. He's doing well, as far as he reckons.

A co-worker (K) claims that T is molesting the children, and claims that she has video footage of it. When the school asks for said footage, K refuses, and is then terminated as she has a history of attempting to throw coworkers under the bus.

K then goes to the NYPD and accuses T of child abuse, NYPD arrests T. NYPD claim they have video footage (the one that K never released), T doesn't know about the 5th amendment and therefore assumes that the cops are right (="confesses").

T is called out by a big paper (NY Times, methinks, not sure) and labelled a "sex monster". T gets death threats over this while he's detained at Riker.

T eventually gets out of Riker, but is sanctioned to wear a GPS tracker + not be around schools/plagrounds, while not leaving Manhattan. This forces him to move out of his previous apartment, and move into a WAY MORE expensive one (luckily his family clould help him out)

Trial begins, and gets postponed over and over again, since the main witness (K) is on holiday in Greece. Meanwhile, interviews show that none of the children involved think that T acted inapproptiately towards them.

So yesterday, the DA chooses to dismiss the charges since there's no clear evidence.

The endgame is this:

T is suing the DA and the NYPD for unlawful incarceration, also the NY Times for slander, and seeking recompensation for added rental lease.
K is suing the school for unlawful termination since she should be entitled to whistleblower protection.

So, who is right?

[Rageaholic]

Sounds like K was making shit up. She had video evidence, but wouldn't show it? Bullshit. I also think that the cops who arrested him were just eager to put someone in handcuffs and coerce a confession out of them.

[Andara Bledin]

If the facts are as presented, my suspicion is that K is entitled to jack shit because she's only entitled to whistleblower protection if she's not crying wolf, which it seems she is. If there was actual video evidence, they wouldn't have needed to wait for her to get back from Greece, and he wouldn't have been released for it's lack.

T should also be suing her for defamation and making a false claim, as well, though he's unlikely to see any money, it would at least go far enough as to label her as having a history of false accusations and potentially provide some protection for her next target. He also might want to look into actual criminal charges for the things that she did.

As for the NYT, if they used the word "alleged" in their reports, then there's nothing he can do as far as that goes, as at the time, he was alleged to be a sex offender against children. They likely only reported on the facts as they stood and are therefor protected.

The case against the DA and police is probably pointless, though they do sometimes pay out because it can cost less that way. Also, considering the situation, it's likely that they didn't do anything wrong, though discovery in a case might find errors in procedure that could make some sort of case.

[Panacea]

K ought to be facing criminal charges. She is a mandatory reporter who refused to report and cooperate.

School doesn't owe her shit.

T is SOL on his lawsuit. Cops acted in good faith, and it isn't slander to report the news. Or libel, even.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

The police should not have arrested him without seeing the video footage first. End of story. Also, K should be arrested for making a false report. Second end of story.

[Seshat]

If K had video footage, she should have shown that to the cops at the time of filing her report. Or to whomever she is supposed to 'mandatorily report' to.
(In quotes because I'm not sure if that's actually valid English: but eh, you know what I mean.)

As Panacea said, she's a mandatory reporter. She should have provided everything she had about the situation at the time of the report; which should have been done at the first feasible opportunity.



Since it seems that K deliberately produced a false report, this should be on her record, and T should be able to seek some sort of reparation or compensation from her. Obviously, K is unlikely to be willing to provide reparation; but if the courts can force such, I think they should.
(Note: if K produced a false report in good faith - perhaps having seen/heard something that warranted investigation but turned out to be innocent - that's different in my opinion. T would have no claim against her in that situation.)


If the police, prison, and similar people, behaved correctly according to the information available to them at the time, T has no real claim against them. In an ideal world, I would like innocents who are arrested/jailed/etc to be compensated, but the world is not ideal.
Given that K refused to provide the evidence, I suspect that T should not have been arrested until said evidence was produced: but I don't have enough information on the case - or on NYC police procedure - to make any real judgement here.



Side note: I have a friend whose toddler-age daughter is fascinated by her bum. When he's changing her nappy (diaper) she'll gleefully and loudly announce such things as 'You're touching my bum!' and 'You're rubbing my bum!' (the latter would be either washing it, or putting rash cream on)
He's taken to saying 'Yes, I'm changing your nappy.', or 'Yes, I'm wiping your bum clean.' or 'Yes, I'm putting nappy cream on it.' or whatever stage of nappy changing he's at. If someone heard only what she was saying, it could easily sound quite suspicious!

[kibbles]

It looks like a case of a false report and in that case IMO, K should get the same jail sentence as T would have gotten if convicted.

[HYHYBT]

The trouble is it would be hard to prove a deliberately false report, as opposed to a mistake of some kind. (Thinking something was abusive that wasn't, losing or damaging beyond recovery the evidence, etc.)

[Rageaholic]

The trouble is it would be hard to prove a deliberately false report, as opposed to a mistake of some kind. (Thinking something was abusive that wasn't, losing or damaging beyond recovery the evidence, etc.)

I don't know. She claimed to have had video evidence, but would not hand it over. That's pretty suspicious.

What reasons could she have for not showing the evidence?

[Gravekeeper]

K ought to be facing criminal charges. She is a mandatory reporter who refused to report and cooperate.

School doesn't owe her shit.

^ That right there. You can't fuck about if you are a mandatory reporter. As for the cops. Normally, I would give them the benefit of the doubt. But the NYPD? Ehhh....no.

( Sorry, I know what case this is. >.> )

T is a Dutch national. Which is note worthy as the police there aren't allowed to pull shit like lying during an interrogation to coerce a confession. They interrogated him for 7 hours, told him they had videos of him doing all of this and even told him he wouldn't go to jail he could just go back to Denmark and "seek treatment". This 7 hour interrogation was conveniently not recorded by the NYPD. So anything he allegedly said during it is by the NYPD's word of mouth.

NYC law allows interrogators to lie during questioning but only if it is not "coercive" in nature. <cough>

I don't know. She claimed to have had video evidence, but would not hand it over. That's pretty suspicious.

What reasons could she have for not showing the evidence?

She initially said it was because she feared repercussions from the school. Then she said it was because she wasn't sure if she was legally allowed to have filmed him. Then she said it was because her lawyer friend told her not too and to only show them to the police.

And for the record when she handed them over to the police, there was nothing on them inappropriate.

[NorthernZel]

GK. you have my full permission to publish avaiable US links if you want. (As said, the only sources I have are from Danish media (not Dutch! so my view on this might be a bit biased.)

That one with the NYPD claiming he'd just get expelled to DK is totally new to me, it hasn't been mentioned in the Danish media at all.

Having said that, Danish media claimed that K allegedly held an animosity towards all male co-workers at the preschool and therefore tried to raise child abuse charges against them all. Is there any credibility to that, has the US media covered that angle?

ETA: According to (well, again) Danish media reports that T's "confession" sounded like "well, if you REALLY say you have video evidence, I'd guess you have a case..."

[Gravekeeper]

GK. you have my full permission to publish avaiable US links if you want. (As said, the only sources I have are from Danish media (not Dutch! so my view on this might be a bit biased.)

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2010019
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.1855612

Her 10 videos of him showed no criminal conduct but more importantly as an intern he was never alone with the children to begin with. The school always operates with 2 teachers per class.

That one with the NYPD claiming he'd just get expelled to DK is totally new to me, it hasn't been mentioned in the Danish media at all.

Welcome to the NYPD. >.>

Having said that, Danish media claimed that K allegedly held an animosity towards all male co-workers at the preschool and therefore tried to raise child abuse charges against them all. Is there any credibility to that, has the US media covered that angle?

She does have a history of leveling complaints at coworkers. This is the first time she's alleged child abuse far as I know though.

ETA: According to (well, again) Danish media reports that T's "confession" sounded like "well, if you REALLY say you have video evidence, I'd guess you have a case..."

That's exactly what it was. Danish police aren't allowed to lie to coerce a confession. NYPD police are. He said he had no memory of doing anything like that but he guessed if they had video he couldn't deny it.

[KellyHabersham]

Side note: I have a friend whose toddler-age daughter is fascinated by her bum. When he's changing her nappy (diaper) she'll gleefully and loudly announce such things as 'You're touching my bum!' and 'You're rubbing my bum!' (the latter would be either washing it, or putting rash cream on)
He's taken to saying 'Yes, I'm changing your nappy.', or 'Yes, I'm wiping your bum clean.' or 'Yes, I'm putting nappy cream on it.' or whatever stage of nappy changing he's at. If someone heard only what she was saying, it could easily sound quite suspicious!

That last sentence reminded me of how my sister's younger daughter was at that age - she had some touch/sensory-related issues, and would upset if someone touched her. She also had a habit of randomly telling people that she hated/didn't like them, and seemed to focus a lot of this on me.......so I was VERY uncomfortable being around "Minnie" because I was afraid her parents would get that idea I was doing something inappropriate to her.

*Admittedly though, I'm biased on this issue because my sister's older daughter falsely accused my daughter of molesting her, and it's caused a major shitstorm in the family.

[Hyena Dandy]

The sad irony is that the acceptable, 'non-coercive' techniques are actually more likely to get a false confession than the unacceptable ones. >_< You are allowed to say "We have the videos, we can prove you did it." You're not allowed to say "The videos show you did it."

The irony being that someone who's actually guilty fully expects videos to show it, and is more likely to maintain their innocence, while the person who's innocent hears the lie and thinks "Oh, thank goodness. They're going to watch the videos, see I didn't do anything. I'll confess, so I can get out of this room."

[NorthernZel]

Bringing this old thread up with an update:

T has reached a settlement with the DA (or was it the NYPD itself?) for a small, but fair amount.

Next up is the civil lawsuit against K.