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| 65 year old Pedophile / Felon Rabbi Yehuda Kolko's Playground for for 35 Years - Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Brooklyn - as the Rabbis and Parents Kept Him in the Classroom - Knowing Allegations about his Proclivities for Kids. |
Aide at Upper West Side School Charged With Sexually Abusing Student
The aide, Gregory Atkins, 56, had worked at Public School 87, on the Upper West Side, since November 2008, the Education Department said. A law enforcement official said a male student had accused Mr. Atkins of having him strip in the school’s bathroom and, at another point, offering money to fondle the boy. But many of the specifics of the case were not available.
It is not the first time Mr. Atkins has been accused of inappropriate behavior with a student. In 2006, when he was working at Middle School 322 in Upper Manhattan, it was recommended that he be disciplined after a student’s mother told investigators that Mr. Atkins gave her son gifts, including a jockstrap. She said he had offered to baby-sit for the boy, noting that he had an extra bedroom, a PlayStation and a computer for the boy to use.
Though the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for schools recommended that he be disciplined, no disciplinary charges were filed.
Efforts to reach Mr. Atkins, who the police said was charged on Friday with sexual abuse, attempted criminal sex act and endangering the welfare of a child, were unsuccessful; no one answered the door at his home. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.
After Mr. Atkins was arrested, he was suspended without pay, the Education Department said. He was the second elementary school aide to be arrested in a sex case involving students this week. An aide in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was arrested on Monday after investigators said they found videos of him engaging in sex acts with students.
Mr. Atkins’s arrest sent a wave of angst through the community.
“I’m shaking now,” said Larisa Conaty, who said her daughter had attended a class of Mr. Atkins’s. “I thought my baby was safe at school. Now I don’t know. They don’t know about the people working here.”
Another parent, Brian Benson, who has two children in the school, said: “It’s overwhelming. It sets off alarms.”
In the previous case, the mother said Mr. Atkins was constantly “lurking” at the boy’s sports games. The boy and Mr. Atkins told investigators there had been no sexual contact between them.
The Education Department said that because there was no finding that the relationship had been sexual, no disciplinary charges were filed. Mr. Atkins, who has fewer job protections than teachers do, would have been forced to file a grievance with the union if the principal sought to fire him.
The principal of M.S. 322 chose to discuss the allegations with Mr. Atkins and set forth detailed guidelines of appropriate job responsibilities. The principal did this orally rather than putting a letter in Mr. Atkins’s file, education officials said. The report does not indicate whether the police were notified.
Mr. Atkins has worked in the school system since 2001, mostly as a substitute at middle schools. He has worked at schools including P.S./I.S. 187, M.S. 246 and I.S. 218. His annual salary is $33,088.
P.S. 87, which serves prekindergarten through fifth grades on West 78th Street, has long been seen as one of the most desirable public schools in the city.
The principal, Monica Berry, sent a letter home with students on Friday about Mr. Atkins’s arrest, saying that the school learned of the allegation on Feb. 3 and notified the police and the special commissioner of investigations. Mr. Atkins was reassigned to a central office, away from students, at that time.
Noah E. Gotbaum, a member of Community Education Council 3, whose son and daughter graduated from P.S. 87, said Mr. Atkins was a teacher’s aide in his son’s class two years ago, when his son was in third grade.
“If he had been investigated previously, we had absolutely had no knowledge of anything of that sort,” Mr. Gotbaum said. “The gentleman was an aide in the class and all seemed copacetic; it was fine. The kids liked him. We liked him. But if the allegations are true, it is pretty scary and sad.”
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6 comments:
Breitbart.com:
"Merkel taking Europe in wrong direction: Soros
Feb 12 [2012]
American billionaire George Soros slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an interview published on Sunday, warning that her policies could lead to a repeat of the Great Depression.
"I admire Chancellor Merkel for her leadership. But unfortunately she is taking Europe in the wrong direction," the financier and philanthropist told the weekly Der Spiegel.
Soros warned against addressing the crisis with spending cuts, urging the injection of funds instead.
"Otherwise we will repeat the mistakes that plunged America into the Great Depression in 1929. That's what Angela Merkel doesn't understand," he said.
US President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the crisis in 1933 with his New Deal, inspired by British economist John Keynes, which combined a reform of the banking system with major infrastructure projects.
Soros also told Der Spiegel, in remarks published in German on the magazine's website, that he thought Europe could handle the crisis without the help of the International Monetary Fund.
He said it was a mistake to offer a bailout to Greece tied to high interest rates. "That's why the country can't be saved today, and the same thing will happen to Italy if we put this country in the straitjacket of paying harsh interest rates," Soros said.
A Greek default would cause an escalation of the crisis and could lead to a run on Italian and Spanish banks, and "Europe would explode," he said."
The Washington Post:
"Netanyahu blames Iran, Hezbollah for bomb targeting Israeli officials
By Simon Denyer and Joel Greenberg, February 13, [2012]
NEW DELHI — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran on Monday for twin attempts to bomb people affiliated with the Israeli embassies in New Delhi and Tbilisi, Georgia.
The wife of an Israeli official in New Delhi and her driver were injured in a blast from explosives slapped on their car by a passing motorcyclist, authorities said. Around the same time, a grenade-type device was found duct-taped to the bottom of a car affiliated with the embassy in Tbilisi. It was defused without anyone being injured...
Ticking off places where he said recent attacks on Jews and Israelis had been thwarted, including Thailand and Azerbaijan, Netanyahu accused Iran of orchestrating Monday’s plots and called the government in Tehran “the greatest exporter of terror in the world.”
“In all these cases, the elements behind the attacks were Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to act with a strong hand, systematically and patiently, against international terrorism, whose source is Iran.”...
Both the New Delhi attack and the discovery of the bomb in Tbilisi happened about the same time Monday — 3:20 p.m. in New Delhi and 1:50 p.m. in Tbilisi (4:50 a.m. in Washington). The incidents further stoked tensions between Iran and the West that are already sky-high.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a statement condemning the incidents in India and Georgia “in the strongest possible terms.” She added: “The scourge of terrorism is an affront to the entire international community. The United States places a high priority on the safety and security of diplomatic personnel around the world and we stand ready to assist with any investigation of these cowardly actions.”...
The United States is leading a global push for sanctions that it hopes will force Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment program, and Israel is weighing a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The United States, Israel and others suspect that Iran is trying to acquire the material and technology needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iran, however, says its nuclear program is aimed only at producing energy and medical isotopes...
In January, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said a thwarted plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States last year — a plot that allegedly originated in Tehran — showed an increasing willingness by Iran to launch attacks on U.S. soil.
Iran has openly threatened retaliation for the recent killings of its nuclear scientists and has blamed the assassinations on both Israel and the United States. Clinton has categorically denied any U.S. involvement; Israeli officials have refused to comment.
“We will never disregard punishment for the individuals who committed this crime and the elements behind its scene,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in a public letter of condolence.
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said the United States, Britain and the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, “will face the consequences of this action. The Islamic Republic of Iran will give them a biting answer.”..."
From: Yeshiva World News:
1) "Eida Ravaad Shlita Calls for Tefilos for Rav Elyashiv
The Rosh Av Beis Din of the Eida Chareidis, HaGaon HaRav Moshe Sternbuch Shlita expressed concerns regarding the condition of Maran Posek HaDor HaGaon HaRav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv Shlita. In an event held on Sunday ..."
2) "Eida Gavaad Shlita Hospitalized in Yerushalayim
The Gavaad of the Eida Chareidis, HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Tuvia Weiss Shlita is hospitalized in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. It appears the Gavaad was transported to the hospital on Sunday afternoon, 19 Shevat ..."
3) "Rav Shteinman Shlita Hospitalized with Fever
HaRosh Yeshiva HaGaon HaRav Aaron Yehuda Leib Shteinman Shlita has been hospitalized in Bnei Brak’s Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital, reportedly with a fever of unknown etiology..."
From: Yeshiva World News:
"TEHILLIM – HaRav Yisroel Belsky Undergoes Emergency Surgery
(Sunday, February 12th, 2012)
Please be Mispallel for Rav Yisroel Belsky Shlita, the Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Vodaath in Flatbush, who underwent emergency surgery on Sunday morning.
He was reportedly rushed by Hatzolah to Maimonides hospital on Motzei Shabbos where doctors did the surgery.
Please be Mispallel for Yisroel ben Chana Tzirel, b’soch kol cholei am yisrael.
(YWN Desk – NYC)"
USA Today.com:
"Breyer robbed at West Indies vacation home
[Feb 13, 2012]
WASHINGTON (AP) – Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed last week by a machete-wielding intruder at his vacation home in the West Indies, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said Monday.
The 73-year-old Breyer, wife Joanna and guests were confronted by the robber around 9 p.m. EST Thursday in the home Breyer owns on the Caribbean island of Nevis, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. The intruder took about $1,000 in cash and no one was hurt, Arberg said.
She said the robbery was reported to local authorities, but she did not know if an arrest has been made.
Breyer reported on his most recent annual disclosure in June that property he owns on Nevis is worth between $100,000 and $250,000.
The last time a justice was the victim of a crime was in 2004, when a group of young men assaulted Justice David Souter as he jogged on a city street. Souter suffered minor injuries.
In 1996, a man snatched Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's purse while she was out walking with her husband and daughter near their home in Washington. Ginsburg was not hurt.
The justices return from a nearly month-long recess for a closed-door conference on Friday. They will next meet in public on February 21."
R' UOJ,
I am sickened by the NY Post article. After years of exposure, NOTHING has changed!
Abuse of the abused, witness tampering, threats! And that smug Kolko says "I am sure that my lawyer will have a defense"???
This man should be sent away for life!
Our so-called leaders should have this article pasted to their foreheads.
How do these thugs have the Brooklyn DA under their thumbs like this to get this stuff dismissed?
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