Ex-Principal Admits Making Lewd Phone Calls
Posted on Monday, 16 of June , 2008 at 1:14 pm
HAMPTON BAYS—The former principal of a Long Island high school, originally charged in February 2006 with seven counts of aggravated harassment for sexually harassing at least a dozen women over the phone, has pleaded guilty.
Frank Vetro, 36, of Shirley, was charged with making “lurid, graphic and obscene telephone calls” to female victims including a former student where he used to teach.
Vetro a former science teacher at Newfield High School, was named an assistant principal in Hampton Bays in 2003 and was promoted to the $122,000 a year job of principal in August, 2005. The school has an enrollment of over 700 pupils.
Court records indicated that he knew some of the women he called and some he didn’t who worked at stores which sold ladies apparel.
According to Catherine Loeffler, trial supervisor of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office’s District Court Bureau in Central Islip, Vetro pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree aggravated harassment, class A misdemeanors, and admitted making several anonymous phone calls to females which contained lewd sexual content.
Six of his other pending cases were dismissed in satisfaction of his guilty plea. He was placed on one year interim probation, expiring on March 26, 2009, where he must accept responsibility and comply with all of the conditions imposed on him by the Suffolk County Probation Department, Loeffler said.
“If and only if he completes his probation term satisfactorily then his case will go back before the judge and his plea will be amended to two counts of second degree harassment as violations”, Loeffler said. She said that Vetro had agreed to waive sealing and prosecutors will be applying for orders of protection for the victims in the cases. She said they would also ask the judge to impose the maximum fine of $250 on each case.Vetro was arrested in February 2006 following a two-month investigation which police say indicated that he made numerous harassing phone calls including several to teachers and a former student at Newfield High School in Selden.
Police said that most of the calls, which were characterized as “lewd”, were allegedly made from Vetro’s cell phone.
Vetro has a prior conviction in 1997 for second degree aggravated harassment for calling a 23-year-old employee at a shoe store in Patchogue and making sexual comments. He received a one year conditional discharge on that arrest.
In recent weeks, Vetro has been contacting various news organizations, trying to remove articles concerning his arrest and conviction from the internet, falsely claiming that the charges against him had been dismissed and falsely claiming that prior news articles about his arrests were “unwarranted and defamatory”. He claimed that “statements regarding my arrests of 2006 are utterly false, are without merit and are defamation in that they depict me as engaging in activity that is harassing to random women, local establishments, former students, etc. furthermore, they depict me as a criminal of a sick nature who violates civil and criminal law. All such accusations have been shown to be false as those posts are extremely outdated and misinformed”.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office and court disagree with Vetro’s assessment, indicating that he admitted his guilt. He also attempted to engage in a prior restraint in trying to dictate that publishers “immediately cease and desist in publishing defamatory statements about me, whether the statements are made by you or third parties”.
Vetro referred to his arrest and conviction as a “terrible tragedy” and claims that he is seeking to find employment in the education field. 6-16-08 Also see www.peytonwolcott.com
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Category: Children, Courts, Crime, Education, Internet, Media, New York State
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