Teacher Is Accused of Raping, Sodomizing Second Student
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A teacher and former director of a private East Side elementary school – already charged with raping of one of her pupils – yesterday was charged with sexually assaulting another boy and a host of other crimes.
The defendant, Lina Sinha, 40, is the daughter of the founders of the Montessori International School of New York. She has worked at the school since she was 24, but is now on administrative leave from her position until the charges are settled, her lawyer, Gerald Shargel, said.
Ms. Sinha was arraigned in October on charges of statutory rape and sodomy of a boy starting when he was 13 and ending when he was 17. The boy is now a 23-year-old police officer.
Prosecutors yesterday said Ms. Sinha was charged with the rape and sodomy of a second boy in a hearing at state Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan. The sexual assaults allegedly began in January 2001, when the boy was 12, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case, Florence Chapin, said.
Ms. Sinha’s lawyer denied the charges.
“These allegations are preposterous,” Mr. Shargel said, adding that the school has “full confidence in her innocence.”
He said his client passed a polygraph test conducted by the former chief of the polygraph unit for the FBI, Paul Minor.
The test “found there was no deception whatsoever,” Mr. Shargel said.
Ms. Chapin said Ms. Sinha tried to conceal from prosecutors the second boy’s school files and attempted to bribe him with new sneakers, $400 in cash, and a pre-paid cell phone not to testify in January.
Prosecutors said Ms. Sinha tried to hurt the first boy’s reputation at the Police Department by filing 10 false reports to different agencies within the New York Police Department, including the Internal Affairs Bureau, under the identify of another woman.
In addition to rape and sodomy charges, Ms. Sinha was charged with attempting to bribe a witness, tampering with evidence, endangering the welfare of a child, and false reporting of an incident, prosecutors said. She faces 81 charges and up to 25 years in prison if convicted, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. She was released yesterday on $50,000 bail.
