A Bronx teacher who was fined by the Department of Education after being arrested for picking up a prostitute is now suing the DOE, claiming they didn't have the right to punish him. The balls on this guy.
In April 2012, 65-year-old Edgar Ortiz was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in the Bronx. According to the New York Daily News, a complaint said that he was naked from the waist down while both of them were "making thrusting motions with their hips" inside of his car. Following his arrest, he reportedly told officers "I don’t know her name. I picked her up on Southern Blvd. and 178th St. for $20. I jumped on it because it was so cheap."
He was issued a $250 fine after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct. When the Department of Education learned about his arrest, he was removed from his classroom at P.S. 73. However, he wasn't fired and remains on the payroll as a substitute. Though officials called for his head, he was instead fined $7,500, a move he thinks is unfair, considering his arrest took place after school hours.
"Teachers are not indentured servants subject to school direction and control 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he complained. "Teachers must have a zone in which they may exercise their own prerogatives and activities."
His lawsuit shouldn't be scoffed at, either. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Huff refused to dismiss it, ruling that the city "failed to offer any legal basis for penalizing a teacher for illegal conduct that has little or no apparent connection with his teaching duties."
So not only did this dude who's been arrested four times in the past two decades—once for sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a minor—get to keep his job and $89,307-a-year salary, he had the audacity to sue the city regarding the fine he escaped with and they have to humor it. Good luck to him.
[via New York Daily News]
