A Brooklyn sixth-grade teacher and mother of three was busted for engaging in a two-year sexual relationship with one of her students, authorities said yesterday.
Claudia Tillery, 42, a veteran humanities instructor at MS 35 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was arrested late Tuesday after the now-14-year-old student told police she had seduced him with drugs and alcohol.
The alleged physical relationship began in 2009 when the victim was 12. None of the illicit activity took place on school grounds or during school hours, police said.
Tillery was slapped with a slew of charges — including rape, unlawfully dealing a child drugs and alcohol and sexual misconduct.
Tillery’s Facebook page makes multiple references to her faith in God and also suggests she was planning to marry a longtime partner.
She is Facebook friends with what appear to be more than a half-dozen teenage male and female students.
One entry on her online profile says her belief in the rule of law was so strict that she had refused to allow her daughter to drink alcohol when the child was within a year of the legal age limit.
“My 20-year-old wants to drink before 21, but I’m not havin’ it,” wrote Tillery.
In another entry, Tillery complained more generally about kids wanting to grow up too quickly.
“Many children today are trying to live adult lives. They just don’t know how to be a child,” she wrote.
The 16-year veteran teacher, whose salary is $85,000, is being assigned to administrative duty pending the outcome of her case, education officials said.
At her arraignment early today in Brooklyn Criminal Court, her lawyer, Andrew Stoll, said the student made up the allegation to get revenge because Tillery ratted him out for stealing a cellphone.
“She served as a mentor to him, she tried to help him. He’s angry,” Stoll said.
Prosecutors had sought $100,000 bail but Judge John Hecht released her without bail.
Students and parents at MS 35, also known as the Stephen Decatur Middle School, said they were shocked by the allegations against a teacher that many knew to be strict.
“I’m surprised and disappointed,” said Luciano Timo, 11, who considers Tillery, his home-room teacher, his favorite instructor.
“She gives us a lot of homework and she’s strict, but I never thought she could do this.”
Luciano’s 37-year-old father, Stanley, said he was also angry about the revelations at a “great school.”
Additional reporting by Jennifer Bain