Second teacher involved in lesbian allegations at NY school files suit
By ANIFriday, January 21, 2011
NEW YORK - The second teacher, who was caught in a compromising position last year at James Madison H.S. with another female teacher, has filed a suit to have her firing overturned.
The two, French teacher Cindy Mauro, 34, and Spanish instructor Alini Brito, 30, had been caught in a compromising position by a janitor at the school.
Brito had sued the Department of Education, seeking to have her firing overturned, and now after two weeks Mauro has also done the same.
Mauro, who was fired last week for the infamous November 2009 incident, contends no “inappropriate sexual behaviour” took place between her and Brito.
A lawyer for the teachers said the claims are the product of an “over-active imagination” that could be shot down by a now-destroyed surveillance tape.
“Not one witness who testified said they saw Ms. Mauro in any state of undress or committing a sexual act. Nobody saw anything,” the New York Daily News quoted Michael Valentine of Altman Schochet, as saying.
Mauro, the suit says, was simply tending to Brito’s needs by giving her candy and sugar while students sang and danced at a school performance.
But a state arbitrator’s report said Brito was topless and on her back while a partially undressed Mauro kneeled between her legs.
“Ms. Brito wasn’t feeling well,” Valentine stated. (ANI)
