Teacher Who "Forced Student, 15, to Have Sex and Two Abortions" Continued Working after Prestigious Catholic School in Queens "Failed to Report Him"

By James Dunn
Daily Mail
May 9, 2016

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3581013/Teacher-forced-student-15-sex-two-abortions-continued-working-prestigious-Catholic-school-Queens-failed-report-him.html

Teacher who 'forced student, 15, to have sex and two abortions' continued working after prestigious Catholic school in Queens 'failed to report him'

A teacher who allegedly repeatedly abused a 15-year-old girl and forced her to get two abortions was allowed to continue working in education after a Catholic school failed to report him, an investigation claims.

Rodney Alejandro, a biology teacher at St Francis Preparatory School in Queens, allegedly began raping the girl in January 1988, according to the Special Commissioner of Investigations (SCI) report.

But he resigned quietly from the New York Catholic school, and went on to work for various others between 1998 and 2012 when he was eventually fired for an unrelated reason.

The girl reported the case to investigators in 2014 when the school was the subject of a $17million lawsuit alleging sexual and physical abuse against teachers at the school in 2013. Her case was dismissed.

The victim, who said wrote a blog about the abuse she suffered, said it made her 'suicidal', but she was told too much time had passed since it happened and she could not launch a lawsuit.

Now 43 and living in Queens, the woman says that in the summer of 1988, she got pregnant for the first time and he 'forced me to get her first abortion'.

When she got pregnant again in January 1989, the science teacher, now 52, 'insisted on an abortion', the SCI report reveals.

She then became so depressed that the following years she failed her exams and dropped out of the prestigious school, which counts Yankees manager Joe Torre in its alumni.

The report says that Alejandro 'resigned and left the school in good standing', and went on to first teach as a city substitute in 1998-99 at various schools in New York.

He was a teacher of the prestigiousFrancis Preparatory School in Queens (pictured), New York, but resigned and 'left in good standing', according to a new report, and went on to work for other schools

From 2004 to 2010, he worked at Robert Wagner Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology in Long Island City and was fired after his state license expired, officials said.

He then went on to teach at Mount Pisgah Christian School in Alpharetta, Georgia, in September 2011, but was asked to resign in 2012 as he failed to disclose the fact he was fired in Long Island.

The SCI report says he will not be pursued over the allegations of his victim because the statute of limitations has run out, however, he will not be eligible to work in schools again.