By Ivan Pereira
A former Ozone Park principal and athletic coach has been fired and faces possible criminal charges for allegedly soliciting sex from at least four male students, the city revealed in a detailed report last week.
In a letter sent to city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Richard Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the New York City School District, said an investigation into Quintin Cedano revealed he inappropriately touched students and engaged in explicit sexual innuendo with them while he was principal at the High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture.
Cedano, who worked at the school at 94-06 104th St. from June 2006 till October, had a complaint filed against him by a school guidance counselor in November 2008. The counselor reported Cedano, who was also an assistant basketball coach at the school, asked a 15-year-old student if he wanted to perform oral sexwhile the two were alone in an elevator in the building, according to the investigation report.
The special commissioner’s office found that the elevator incident was one of many alleged inappropriate occurrences between Cedano, that student and other teen boys.
The principal asked the 15-year-old student on several occasions to perform oral sex and when the teen refused, Cedano recounted how he bought him a cell phone and got a teacher to stop penalizing him, the report said.
Cedano also sent more than 120 text messages that were sexual in nature to the 15-year-old, the report said.
The 15-year-old student, along with two of his classmates, had breakfast in Cedano’s office every morning and the principal would allegedly smack them on their butts when the breakfast ended, according to the report.
The special commissioner’s office said six male students confirmed that Cedano had asked them for oral sex either jokingly or with some serious connotations. While he was being interviewed in September, the principal denied the allegations by the students and guidance counselor, but could not explain the alleged text conversations between himself and the 15-year-old student.
The city Department of Education said it was in the process of disciplining Cedano. It said he has been working as a city teacher since 2003 and was earning more than $140,000 a year.
“He was not tenured in any title, so we are terminating him immediately,” the DOE said in a statement.
The Queens district attorney’s office was also investigating Cedano, but had not pressed charges against him, a spokeswoman for the DA said.
Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
