A 6-year-old boy was repeatedly jammed into a dark hole in a closet ceiling by sadistic staffers at an after-school program inside a city school, The Post has learned.
After being hoisted by the crotch and lifted headfirst into the pitch-black compartment as a form of punishment, the terrified kindergartner would be locked — “kicking, screaming and crying” — inside the tiny classroom closet for “God knows how long,” his mother Porsche Gaddy told The Post.
“They emotionally tortured him,” the distraught woman said through tears. “My son told me that they did it to him all the time.”
Four staff members at the LACASA after-school care program inside PS 84 Lillian Weber School of the Arts on the Upper West Side were fired from the program last week after the allegations came to light. One is still working at another school for the Department of Education.
The NYPD said it is investigating. The DOE has shut down the program, saying it did not have a permit to operate.
The tot was tortured for “acting up” — and was the only child of the 20 in the aftercare program to be crammed into the 2 1/2-foot by 1 1/2-foot opening, the mom said.
But the others kids were terrified of the same fate — and alerted adults to the alleged abuse.
On May 11, two girls told their teachers at the well-regarded K-5 school on West 92nd Street that they were too scared to attend aftercare that day.
“They didn’t want to get put in the hole too,” Gaddy, 29, said. “The staff would threaten other kids with getting put up there.”
Gaddy’s son was questioned by the school guidance counselor and he corroborated the girls’ claims. The principal informed Gaddy, who immediately filed a police report.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” the Bronx mother said. “How could somebody I entrusted with the safety of my child be hurting him?”
The kids said LACASA staffers told them to keep the torture chamber “a secret.”
Gaddy’s son first enrolled in October, but it wasn’t until the spring that the tot began acting strangely at home — leaving a trail of heart-breaking clues.
“He kept talking about a secret, but he was scared of getting in trouble if he told,” the mother said.The terrified kindergartner would be locked — “kicking, screaming and crying” — inside the tiny classroom closet
The boy even practiced locking himself in a closet at home to get used to the abuse.
“He went inside, shut the door and said ‘It’s not so bad when the lights are on,’” Gaddy said. “I never put it together that he was trying to toughen himself up.”
Now, the young boy is terrified of the dark and sleeping alone.
“It was never a problem before, but now he sleeps with me every night,” Gaddy said. “It’s affecting him to the point where he can’t even talk about it. When you bring it up he gets upset and withdrawn.”
The after-school program was run by the Strycker’s Bay Neighborhood Council — a non-profit that has received $115,500 in city funding so far this year.
The program served about 145 PS 84 students and cost families $125 a week.
A Strycker’s Bay executive told Gaddy that employees Camila Naranjo, Ricky Soto, Naya Fields and the program’s head kindergarten counselor Charlie Calderon were all fired as a result of the allegations.
When called by The Post, the non-profit would not confirm nor deny the names, but said they “immediately met with the staff that were involved and terminated their employment.”
Naranjo is a Department of Education employee who was moonlighting at the aftercare center, and who is still employed as a paraprofessional at PS 9 Sarah Anderson School, the city DOE confirmed.
Naranjo’s parents said Saturday that their daughter was traveling and that ”everything is resolved,” without elaborating.
DOE officials said LACASA was shut down on May 17 — six days after the students’ revelations — because it “did not have a valid permit.”
The program needed a Department of Buildings permit to allow children to remain inside the school after hours.
A Strycker’s Bay spokeswoman said they “are disturbed by the allegations,” but said the program left the school “due to unrelated administrative matters.”
The DOE would not confirm how long the city allowed the program to operate in a school without a permit.
The principal of PS 84, who had also notified the program director of LACASA and the district superintendent, did not return a request for comment.
No arrests have been made in the “ongoing” investigation, an NYPD spokesman said. The DOE said it’s also investigating.