A Spanish teacher who was fired for getting hot and sweaty with another woman in a Brooklyn classroom is suing to get her job back.
Alini Brito, 30, says she was only getting candy from her colleague Cindy Mauro, not her sweets – and that the custodian who “saw” them getting carnal in classroom at James Madison HS has an overactive imagination.
That custodian, Brito’s lawyer said, “witnessed” the alleged lesbian romp while standing 15 feet behind a 300-pound janitor who’d opened the classroom door a crack.
“He’s sees through this other custodian, who’s 6’4 or 6’5, and sees a partially naked body lying on the floor,” said the lawyer, Michael Valentine.
The giant custodian never testified at the hearing that cost the married mom her job – and another janitor who was quoted in press reports as saying the women were naked and all over each other wasn’t even on the floor at the time, Valentine said.
He added that his client would have had an easier time proving her case if school officials hadn’t destroyed a surveillance tape that showed the hallway outside the classroom – and that a district supervisor who watched said it didn’t show any custodians peering through the classroom door.
The tape also didn’t show the school safety agent who testified that he’d seen Brito “naked on the floor with her legs kneeled, like in a birthing position, and I saw the blonde between her legs.”
“When I opened the door, she looked up and told me to shut the door, shut the door,” the agent added.
The hearing officer “ignored this seminal piece of evidence,” the filing says.
In actuality, what’s been described as a steamy sapphic soiree was Mauro helping an ailing Brito get some sugar and candy because the diabetic was having a blood sugar crash, her filing says.
“Upon immediately entering the classroom, Brito’s knees buckled, at which point Brito laid down off to the right but at the foot of the classroom door. Mauro assisted Brito by placing Brito’s sweater under her head and elevated her legs in a chair. Mauro also obtained a couple of suger packets from her desk and gave them to Brito,” the petition says.
The hearing officer, Mary Crangle, slammed Brito’s claims and conduct as “outrageous” and “unprofessional.”
“There is no possible medical, nonsexual assistance that a partially naked person could possibly be rendering to another naked person in the position described,” Crangle’s report read.
Valentine said his client has been “devastated” by the allegations and wants to be vindicated and “go back to doing what she does best – teaching.”