By Betsy Scheinbart
A high school teacher from Douglaston pleaded guilty Tuesday to third degree sodomy after having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student at Martin Van Buren High School five years ago.
As the result of a plea bargain, Mark Weisberg, 50, will serve five years’ probation, attend counseling for sex abusers, surrender his license to teach, resign from the city Board of Education and be subject to Megan’s Law, which registers all sex offenders with local law enforcement officials.
Weisberg and his attorney declined to comment after appearing before State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Grosso in Kew Gardens. He will be sentenced Aug. 10, Grosso said.
Weisberg surrendered to authorities last month on charges he had sexual relations with a student who was 15 at the time and a member of his English class after she came forward and reported the incidents last year.
Now in college, the former Martin Van Buren student told the Queens district attorney’s office that she did not want the same thing to happen to another student.
“We’re very pleased he is being held responsible and the victim is pleased,” said Ken Appelbaum, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case.
The sexual encounters took place on nine occasions inside Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village between June 1996 and April 1997, typically after class let out, prosecutors said last month.
The encounters occurred in various rooms where Weisberg thought they would not be seen, Appelbaum said. They did not occur, however, as a condition of the student receiving a passing grade, prosecutors said.
Sometime in 1998, concerns about inappropriate communications between Weisberg and the student began to circulate around the school, prosecutors said last month.
Weisberg was then removed from John Adams High School in Ozone Park, where he was teaching until early May. He was transferred to the Board of Education headquarters in Brooklyn.
Weisberg, who has been a resident of Douglaston for 19 years, lives with his wife in a home on 245th Place. Neighbors said they have two children, a son and a daughter.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.
