B'klyn Music Teacher Busted for Having Sex with Teen Choir Member: Cops

By Yoav Gonen
New York Post
December 21, 2012

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/klyn_music_teacher_busted_member_0RBpxzQrR4LztGRf6TuOaL

This time he played the wrong tune.

A Brooklyn middle school music teacher and trumpet player bedded a teenage member of his wife’s youth choir — and even had sex with the girl while his wife was at church, officials said.

Vaughn McKinney, a teacher at IS 59 in Queens, was arrested Thursday morning on charges of rape and sexual misconduct, cops said.

The music teacher allegedly pressured the then- 16-year-old girl into a sexual relationship after she complained about needing a job because she didn’t have enough money to buy a phone.

McKinney not only bought the girl a cell phone and paid the monthly bills, according to city investigators, he also gave her an iPod, shoes from a SoHo boutique and cash — but with sleazy strings attached.

Vaughn McKinney

“If I get you the cell phone, you know what you have to do for it,” McKinney was quoted as saying by the girl’s father, a report by the Special Commissioner of Investigation found.

The now 18-year-old girl told investigators she had sex with McKinney 12 to 15 times throughout 2011 — including at a hotel identified as the Surfside Motel in Queens and in his East Flatbush basement on Sundays after his wife, Patricia, had left for church.

Patricia McKinney is the musical director for the East Flatbush Ecumenical Community Choir, which the girl was a member of for four years.

Vaughn McKinney would sometimes attend the choir’s practice sessions.

The twisted relationship began to unravel last fall when the girl confided in a youth minister at The Brooklyn Tabernacle Church about the affair, the report says.

The church pastor then confronted McKinney, allegedly got him to confess — and reported the matter to the girl’s mother.

The pastor told investigators he did not contact police at that point, the report says.

The girl’s mother also stalled in reporting the incident, investigators said. When the teen’s father found out, he went to the local precinct but the girl was uncooperative.

Eventually, Patricia McKinney found a bill for the girls’ cell phone and reached out to her.

The home of married music teacher Vaughn McKinney.

Patricia soon learned the harsh truth after meeting with the girl’s mom, then “left the restaurant, went to her car and started to cry,” according to the report.

No one reported the relationship to authorities until March 2012, when the girl’s mother contacted SCI.

Their report confirmed the sexual contact, but left it open as to whether it began when the girl was 16 or 17.