A former math teacher at the exclusive Riverdale Country School in the Bronx has been slammed with additional felony statutory rape charges for an affair he’s already accused of having with a 16-year-old female student.
Richard Hovan, 31, had originally been charged last year with repeatedly having oral sexual contact with the unnamed student on two dates in May, 2011 in his condo on West 23rd Street in Chelsea.
The updated statutory sex indictment against Hovan involves those same two dates, but now includes five instances of actual intercourse, in addition to the original charges of oral contact, and one misdemeanor count of acting in a manner injurious to a child.
The new indictment comes a year after his arrest, and two years after the girl’s allegations were first made and Hovan lost his Riverdale job, his lawyer, Vinoo Varghese, noted after court.
“It’s amazing how charges get changed over the course of two years,” the lawyer said. “Now what was oral contact is rape. It’s amazing how her memory slowly gets better,” he said.
Varghese said in court that he will move to dismiss the new indictment on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct, for allegedly filing the new indictment as a “penalty” for his declining any plea bargain in the case.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon set June 23 as Hovan’s next court date.
Hovan — an MIT and Columbia University-trained teacher of math and calculus who also works as a private tutor — remains free on $25,000 bail.