Lina Sinha, 40, a teacher for 16 years at the Montessori International School of New York which was established by her parents in 1969, was immediately sent to jail in lieu of $3.5 million bail. She had been free on $50,000 bail but State Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman upped the bail due to the lengthy sentence that Sinha faces and her family's substantial assets. Prosecutors had previously argued that she was a flight risk because of ties to India. It was expected that her family would post bail.
A guilty verdict was returned on 11 charges. She was found not guilty of several charges. Prosecutors said that they would retry her on the six rape charges.
She faces up to seven years in prison each on the sodomy and witness bribery charges and up to four years on other sodomy convictions. She was also convicted on several misdemeanor counts of criminal impersonation and falsely reporting an incident which are punishable by up to a year in jail.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 19 and prosecutors have said that they want her sentenced to serve consecutive terms on the charges rather than concurrently.
It had been alleged that Sinha had raped two former male students, one of whom was 13 years old, the other 12 years old, when the abuse began. The older of the two alleged victims, now 24, is an officer with the New York Police Department in Queens. The other alleged victim is a convicted drug dealer.
Last August, she had turned down a plea deal of six years in prison in exchange for her guilty plea to 81 counts of rape, sodomy and tampering with a witness.
Sinha was indicted for four counts of third degree rape, three counts of second degree rape, 14 counts of third degree rape, five counts of second degree sodomy, 36 counts of third degree sodomy, two counts of bribing a witness, tampering with physical evidence, endangering the welfare of a child, four counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree, tampering with a witness in the fourth degree, and 10 counts of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree.
The police officer testified that his affair with Sinha began in 1995 after a sports team of which he was captain lost a game and she consoled him with a kiss, his first kiss. He testified their relationship continued for nine years until Sinha became jealous of his girlfriend allegedly falsely accused him of threatening her and raping her.
He told the jury that the romance continued after he completed the eighth grade and left the school. The relationship continued until late 2004 or early 2005 when he broke off the relationship.
After the split, prosecutors say that Ms. Sinha began placing 911 calls and filing complaints against her former student with the Civilian Complaint Review Board which handles reports of police misconduct. Among her accusations was that he had put a gun to her head and had raped another woman.
Prosecutors claim that Sinha had intercourse with the student as a birthday present when he turned 15 after many acts of oral sex while he was 14 years old. He testified that she called the intercourse "smushing".
He said he hadn't wanted the relationship to stop when he was in school, he thought it was "cool". He testified that he thought that if he told anyone about it, "it would stop, and I didn't want it to stop".
Sinha's defense is that she had tutored the student and began the consensual relationship after he was 17 years old and when he was attending college. Her attorney, Gerald Shargel, said that the police officer had lived with Sinha for a time while he was attending college and after he dropped out of college and enrolled in the Police Academy, he kept an extra police uniform at her apartment to which he had a key.
In regard to the 911 calls, her attorney said that she was jealous because her ex-boyfriend had begun seeing another woman. She claims that the officer became abusive and when his supervisors questioned him about the complaints that Sinha had made against him, he allegedly falsely accused Sinha of having had underage sex with him. Shargel said the officer was then unable to retract the false accusation because to have done so could have cost him his job with the police department.
According to her attorney, when the second student with whom she was allegedly sexually involved was questioned, he at first denied any relationship with Sinha but after his mother hired an attorney to sue Sinha and the school, he changed his story.
That affair supposedly began in 2001 with a hug on a ski trip and a month later, at age 34 she'd had intercourse with the 12-year-old student, a seventh grader according to prosecutors. That student is now 19 and on probation from his last arrest. He claims he had sex with the teacher at least six times when he was 12.
According to prosecutors, Sinha had tried to bribe the 12-year-old by buying him sneakers, giving him $400 in cash and buying him a prepaid phone.
Her attorney said that they will appeal. 3-31-07
© 2007 North
Country Gazette
