A middle school special-education teacher in New York's Long Beach Public Schools outrageously abused disabled students and the district covered it up, a recent court petition alleges.
According to a notice of claim obtained by The Huffington Post, Lisa Weitzman made one pupil masturbate in front of the class, performed a lap dance on another and stamped pupils' feet with her heels to quiet them. She's also accused of sending her "severely disabled" pupils to stay in the rest room for timeouts.
The filing is a precursor to a potential lawsuit in which Gerard Misk, attorney to the students and their mothers, told HuffPost he would seek $5 million from the district for each of the five victims plus possible punitive damages. The lawsuit would be targeted at the school district, not Weitzman directly.
"While I have seen other instances of abuse that have been appalling, this one is worse because these are the most vulnerable children," Misk told HuffPost on Friday. "The families trusted this teacher and the school and had their trust destroyed."
The students identified in the filing suffer from Down syndrome or severe autism, he said, and are non-communicative.
The court document also alleges that former Long Beach Middle School instructor Weitzman bound the children's wrists and ankles.
The district was investigating Weitzman at least as far back as 2014, but Misk asserts the district covered up the abuse. Several teacher's assistants filed complaints about her that were never pursued, the notice alleges.
The victims identified were four male students and one female who endured the alleged abuse between 2011 and 2014. They are now between the ages of 14 and 18.
The accusations gained outside scrutiny when Weitzman chose to make public a disciplinary hearing that began in March, the Long Beach Herald reported. Weitzman's attorney, Debra Wabnik, denied the accusations. "She elected to have a public hearing because she has nothing to hide," Wabnik told the outlet.
Superintendent David Weiss told The Huffington Post in a statement: "Please know that Long Beach has complied, and will continue to comply, with all federal and state legal requirements regarding complaints to the district about possible abuse or mistreatment of our students. Laws protecting the privacy of students prohibit us from saying anything more."
H/T Courthouse News