So much for teachers as role models.
A Manhattan judge says an elementary-school teacher busted for having sex with a hooker can sue the city Department of Education for fining him over the incident — saying his sex for cash fling had nothing to do with his job.
Judge Carole Huff scoffed at the Education Department’s argument that “teachers are supposed to be role models for their students” and that Edgar Ortiz’s arrest “blotted that image” with his sleazy crime.
The city failed “to offer any legal basis for penalizing a teacher for illegal conduct that has little or no apparent connection with his teaching duties,” Huff wrote in a bizarre decision released Monday.
“The incident did not occur anywhere near the school and occurred on Sunday morning, when the school was not even in session,” she sniffed.
Ortiz, 65, had been a teacher at PS 73 in The Bronx since 1998 when he was cuffed by cops at 7:20 a.m. on April 29, 2012, “for patronizing a prostitute.” His criminal records are sealed.
The tenured teacher, who earns nearly $90,000 a year, never told his supervisors about his bust as required.
It’s unclear how DOE officials found out about it, but after they did, they exiled him to a rubber room pending an internal probe.
An arbitrator then ruled in May that Ortiz had “committed the acts” that led to his arrest, failed to notify his supervisors of his bust and should pay a $7,500 fine.
Ortiz filed a lawsuit against the city later that month calling the fine “inappropriate and excessive” and asking that the judge allow him to try to overturn it.
Ortiz did not return a message for comment.
“We are very disappointed in the Court’s decision. Given that DOE can submit additional legal papers, we’ll be emphasizing the importance of taking action to ensure that educators — who are entrusted with our children’s care — do not engage in the same sort of inappropriate conduct as Mr. Ortiz,” city lawyer Daniel LaRose said.