By Dustin Brown
An Astoria schoolteacher was indicted last week on charges she had sex with two students in her office at a Manhattan high school, the Manhattan district attorney said.
Judith Esparza, of 25-34 Crescent St., was charged with multiple acts of third-degree rape, sodomy and sexual abuse as well as endangering the welfare of a child.
“She’s innocent. That’s the best I can tell you right now,” said her husband of one year, Michael Schwartz, two days after the arraignment.
Esparza is accused of having sex with two 16-year-old students — one of whom was enrolled in her class — on at least 10 occasions between November 1998 and June 1999, the district attorney said. Although the encounters usually took place within her office during the school day, Esparza and one of the students once allegedly had sex at a hotel at 25th Street and Sixth Avenue, the DA said.
People under 17 years of age are considered incapable of giving consent to sexual relations under New York state law.
Esparza pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Aug. 15 and was released on $10,000 bond, said Sherry Hunter, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney.
“We scrounged it,” said Schwartz, who posted bail in order to get his wife out of jail for her 25th birthday, which was last Thursday — one day after her arrest.
Schwartz said he and his wife would only offer limited comment until they found a lawyer to represent her, which they planned to do last week. At her arraignment, Esparza was represented by a legal aide who had been on hand at the courtroom, her husband said.
According to an interview printed last week in the Daily News, one of the two boys who implicated Esparza said his sexual relationship with her was entirely consensual and involved no coaxing on her part.
Esparza, a lifelong resident of Astoria, had been teaching Spanish at Marta Valle High School in Manhattan since 1998 and had anticipated receiving tenure when the allegations surfaced, Schwartz said. She was removed from her teaching post and reassigned to administrative duties in the superintendent’s office in June while the charges were being investigated.
Schwartz said that after learning of the allegations in June, his wife heard nothing further about the case until her arrest last Wednesday.
Marta Valle Principal Matthew Angrisani notified the police, as well as the offices of Schools Chancellor Harold Levy and Special Commissioner of Investigation Edward Stancik, as soon as he learned of the allegations against Esparza, Board of Ed spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said.
“All I can tell you is that the principal did what he was supposed to do, which is to inform the proper authorities, and these authorities are investigating,” Feinberg said.
Esparza’s employment with the Board of Education will be “terminated pending a disciplinary hearing,” Feinberg said.
“This has ruined her life,” Schwartz said. “Obviously, if you’re taken out of a job you worked hard for and did your best at just because of false allegations — it can happen to anybody. It’s scary.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
