By Michael Morton
Yolanda Moorjaney, 31, of 247th Street allegedly used a black marker to write two phrases, both of which contained the word “nigger,” the DA said. Moorjaney, who the DA's office said is part Caucasian and part South Asian, was charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime and faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
“The words were hateful, offensive and harmful to public order as well as being destructive to property,” Brown said.
Moorjaney, a tenured teacher who has been at PS 265 for six years, was reassigned to the main office of School District 75, pending the results of the police investigation, a spokesman for the city Department of Education said. If Moorjaney is convicted, he said the process to fire her would then begin.
Moorjaney was arraigned the day of the incident and was scheduled to return to Queens Criminal Court on March 26. Neither Moorjaney nor her family could be reached for comment, and the school declined to speak about the case.
Members of the police's Hate Crime Task Force arrested Moorjaney at about 7:45 a.m. when she left the school's third-floor bathroom, the DA said. The Task Force was at the school to respond to complaints from administrators about similar incidents dating back to Jan. 30.
Officers had already determined that the restroom that Moorjaney entered was graffiti-free beforehand, and when they examined it after she left, they found the two epithets, the DA said. When Moorjaney was subsequently searched, she had a black pen in her possession, the DA said.
Reach reporter Michael Morton by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by calling 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
