A Queens middle school teacher charged with statutory rape has pleaded guilty and is expected to be sentenced to six months in jail as part of a plea deal, officials said.
Daniel Reilly, 36, admitted to having sex multiple times at his Forest Hills home with a 14-year-old girl he used to teach, said District Attorney Richard A. Brown.
“As a teacher and an adult, the defendant was in a position of power to know better,” Brown said. “Children should be able to remain children.”
Reilly, a former sixth grade English teacher at I.S. 237, pleaded guilty to second-degree rape. He was also charged in April with committing a second-degree criminal sexual act, endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree sexual abuse.
Those charges were dropped as part of a plea deal, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said.
The bargain was also meant to spare the victim from testifying.
Reilly, a married father, will be sentenced on July 22 to six months in jail and 10 years’ probation, according to Brown. He faced up to seven years in prison at the time of his arraignment.
He will also have to give up his teaching license, register on the state’s sex offender registry and take a sex offender reform program.
“This case should serve as a clear and unmistakable warning that law enforcement is prepared under any circumstances to apprehend and prosecute sexual predators who betray and defile youngsters,” Brown said.
The relationship between Reilly and the teen, which began last August, surfaced when her sister found sexually explicit text messages on her phone, the district attorney said.
Reilly, who made close to $62,000 a year, resigned last week from the Flushing school where he worked for six years, a Department of Education spokesperson said.
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