A Staten Island teacher accused of improperly touching a student waged a war against whistle-blowing colleagues by filing more than a dozen fabricated complaints of sexual and other misconduct, the school system’s Special Commissioner of Investigation said Tuesday.
Over a three-month period, James Burke made 13 false accusations against teachers at PS 69 who were witnesses against him, as well as against their family members and school officials on Staten Island, according to the SCI.
Some of the accusations were so serious they were investigated by the NYPD’s Special Victims Squad. All were determined to be unfounded.
Burke, 27, was unmasked when an investigator looking into the original case against him realized that one of the “anonymous” calls was made from Burke’s phone.
The case began on May 31, 2013, when a PS 69 dean lodged a complaint of inappropriate behavior by Burke involving an autistic 8-year-old male student.
Burke was reassigned after he refused to be interviewed by SCI investigators in July.
On July 26, an anonymous caller, claiming to be the father of a male second-grader at PS 69, accused a female teacher of touching the private parts of his son several times in their classroom.
But when cops looked into the charge, they determined the accusation was bogus because the boy did not live with his father and never had a relationship with him.
On Aug. 5, an anonymous male told SCI that a female paraprofessional at PS 58 on Staten Island caressed the genital area of an 8-year-old autistic boy and hit him when he did not follow her order.
The pupil and paraprofessional denied to police that the incident ever happened.
“A pattern emerged,” SCI chief Richard Condon wrote in his report to Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. The accused people “were witnesses against Burke, members of their families or DOE employees at schools on Staten Island, including PS 69.”
The Department of Education brought disciplinary action against Burke and he agreed to resign effective March 31, 2014, SCI said. The case was turned over to the Staten Island DA’s Office.
A man who identified himself as Burke hung up on a reporter who reached him at his mother’s home.
With additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory