When one of the most recognized private schools in New York hired Winston Nguyen in 2020, managers were aware of a fraud conviction in his troubled past. But the second chance they offered him. Nearly four years later, Mr Nguyen, a math teacher, was again arrested, accused of the intention of the students. And the school, Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn, faced a crisis.
On Monday, Mr Nguyen, 38, said guilty of a felony and many misdemeanors, accused of attracting students and videos by students. When he is later sentenced this month, he faces a possible seven -year imprisonment.
Mr Nguyen was detained after the hearing and will be temporarily held in the Rikers island’s prison complex.
His speech marks the last chapter in a scandal that has contaminated the reputation of St. Anna’s school and the managers who hired him.
This is the second time Mr Nguyen has been convicted of a felony. In 2019, he admitted guilty to Grand Larceny and other charges, accused of stealing more than $ 300,000 than his employers, an older couple who worked as a health assistant at home.
He served for four months at the Rikers and was hired by Saint Ann’s, a school that charges about $ 60,000 a year to tuition and serving the rich creative class of New York.
A figure of a dressed figure who often arrived in a suit and sometimes with a tie, Mr. Nguyen transformed a felony file from a responsibility in a resume in a school known for his arms of unusual teachers. He taught a seminar called “Crime and Punishment” and quickly became an accessory at school.
It was the kind of opportunity that few criminals get.
In interviews with the New York Times last week, Mr Nguyen tried to understand how he wasted all this and how he fell from his youth promise-a high school student, he was once honored by Houston’s mayor, his homeland and went to his homeland and went to his homeland. prison for the second hour in six years.
“I have hurt so many people,” he said.
Mr Nguyen refused to address the students who are targeting it immediately – he will do so when he was convicted, he said – but expressed the remorse for the damage he caused to school. “It was an incredibly big community for me, and really, I really regret that my actions have painted in a horrible light,” he said.
Neither the students targeted by Mr Nguyen nor their families have spoken publicly and prosecutors have protected their privacy through the legal process.
Sitting in the courtyard outside his apartment in Harlem, Mr Nguyen was stolen between recognition of his violations and occasional intense explosions of self-analysis. He said he was suffering from a mental illness, bipolar II disorder, which he said he had not been treated during the Covid-19 pandemic and that he was treated sexually abusing as a child, but did not excuses his behavior. “I take a lot of responsibility for my actions,” he said. “I made bad decisions.”
In Brooklyn’s Criminal Court on Monday, Mr Nguyen arrived 30 minutes late, wearing a untelk t -shirt, casual slacks and a parka. It brought a large red shopping bag and a big red book, the new Oxford Bible.
Mr Nguyen has agreed to admit his guilt for the use of a child in sexual performance and five separate measurements, representing five children, “knowingly acting in a way likely to be harmful to a child’s physical, mental or moral prosperity”.
Daniel Newcombe, an assistant attorney, briefed the judge of the recommended punishment: seven years of imprisonment, 10 years of supervision after being released and a demand to register as a sex perpetrator for 20 years.
Mr Nguyen’s conviction will take place in two weeks.
Judge Philip V. Tisne asked Mr Nguyen if he realized that after completing this sentence, if convicted of a felony for the third time, he would be automatically sentenced to 25 years in prison life.
“Yes, your honor,” Mr Nguyen said.
Eric Gonzalez, a lawyer for Brooklyn District, said the invocation agreement had held Mr Nguyen responsible for his “worrying and predatory behavior”, while saving the victims to testify.
When the hearing was over, judicial officials dug the hands of Mr Nguyen behind his back. He pulled his head down, as his lawyer, Frank Rothman, hit his back. Was driven out of a side door.
Outside the courtroom, Mr Rothman revolved by journalists. “There is no defense that one can offer when you have pictures on your phone,” he said.
“I don’t know what his first night will be,” said Rothman. “I’m sure it’s anxious. He is in prison as a sex perpetrator. ”
Mr Nguyen was hired as an administrative assistant at Saint Ann’s in the summer of 2020. He had alerted the administrator who interviewed him that he had been convicted of a felony and at least one Saint Ann employee urged school leaders not to hire him.
He quickly became a necessary member of the staff, helping to manage logistics during the pandemic as he was incorporated into the school community.
The school promoted Mr Nguyen to the Mathematics Professor in the fall of 2021, but did not warn his parents of his criminal record until the students discovered news about him online. In October 2021, Vince Tompkins, then the head of the school, sent parents an email to the new mathematics teacher. “I can assure you that as with any teacher we hire, we are confident of Winston’s ability and ability to train and care for our students,” he wrote.
Within a year, students from Saint Ann’s and other Brooklyn schools – some of the 13 -year -old – began receiving invitations via Snapchat for photos and videos. The user behind the anonymous Snapchat accounts sent to a student a graphic video of a 16 -year -old masturbation boy.
By February 2024, Saint Ann’s had been notified by the Brooklyn Public Prosecutor’s Office that he was investigating the continued targeting of his students from anonymous Snapchat accounts looking for sexual photos and videos. School managers did not alert parents.
Days before the end of the school year, Mr. Nguyen was arrested near Saint Ann’s. He was accused in July with 11 felony measurements, including the use of a child in sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child and spreading obscene material to minors.
The news shocked parents and students and led to a torrent of media coverage.
In December, Saint Ann’s released the findings of a survey conducted by lawyers commissioned by the school’s board of directors to determine how the school had come to worry about a felony.
The inflatable report said the school administration had “fooled” the parents who expressed their concern about Mr Nguyen’s background and had suggested that they were not in a step with the school’s progressive values.
“In some cases,” the report said, the administrators “prioritized teachers, including Nguyen about the concerns of students and their families about the teacher’s background or behavior.”
In the months since his arrest, Mr Nguyen has been confined to his apartment. She participates in videotape sessions, including group sessions with other people accused of sexual offenses and attended occasional ecclesiastical services. Otherwise, he remained isolated, reading and watching TV.
His sister recently visited him from Houston to help him clean his apartment as he prepares to grow up in the middle age in prison. “I don’t deserve the family I have,” Mr Nguyen said.
In recent weeks he has flooded his possessions. During the packaging, he met with a warm coat given to him during a cold winter by Bernard Stoll, the man he worked for and stole before his work at Saint Ann’s. “People were very, incredibly good for me, and I betrayed their trust in a very deep way,” he said.
He didn’t want to be tried, he said.
“I’m in a place where I know what I’ve done,” he said. “I think part of the reason I feel so terribly is that I don’t know any way I can make it better for children or their families or school. I accept this suggestion because I know I did something wrong and I want to answer it.”
