It looked like a natural choice for Lina Sinha to follow her parents and run the Montessori schools in New York started by them over 25 years ago. But when she was charged on October 28 with the statutory rape and sodomisation of a 15-year-old male student seven years ago, the reputation of the 38-year-old teacher and administrator ran into serious trouble. If convicted, Sinha who has vigorously denied the charges, faces up to seven years in a prison.
The former student is a city cop, and according to Sinha's lawyer, he made up the charges following a complaint the teacher lodged against him with the police department. The high profile lawyer Henry Mazurek insists the relationship has always been platonic.
The Sinha family owns several businesses in New York including travel agency and a spice shop. People who have known the family for a long time just cannot believe the allegations against Lina Sinha. Many of them said she was driven by her mother's passion for education.
Sinha, who has been teaching for over 16 years, won a small victory when Judge Shawndya Simpson released her without a bail, after being in custody for more than a day. Simpson spurned prosecutor's objection that Sinha could flee America and her passport should be confiscated.
Simpson, who has set the first hearing in the case in early January, also dismissed the prosecutor's plea that the former student, who is now a cop, should be protected from Sinha. He should know how to protect himself being a police officer, the judge said.
Henry Mazurek has denounced the charges that Sinha had started the relationship with the boy when he was 13 and continued it for four years till the year 2000. The two reportedly had oral sex first and sexual intercourse for the first time when the boy was 15, according to the prosecution. They allegedly met at a number of places including a school van for their trysts. The relationship ended when the student transferred to another school at age 17.
The former student made the allegations, Mazurek said following a confrontation between him and Sinha in March. She accused him in a complaint to the New York Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau of assaulting her at her apartment, according to the lawyer.
Mazurek also asserted that there was no sexual relationship between the two. The cop, who cannot be identified by name because of the rape issue, filed the complaint before the five years of statutory limit for such cases ended.
In the papers filed in the Criminal Court of the City of New York, detective Ramon Trigo stated that Sinha had "deviate sexual intercourse" when the boy was a minor. A spokesperson for the district attorney, Barbara Thompson, told reporters that Sinha's complaints "were fully investigated."
"We believe they are wholly without merit," she added.
