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A swanky Brooklyn private school knowingly hired an ex-con who was later accused of soliciting child porn from students — and then “shamed” students and parents who raised concerns about his employment, a scathing investigative report has found.
The elite Saint Ann’s School commissioned an independent probe into its own hiring of Winston Nguyen after the teacher was arrested in June for allegedly catfishing kids online and fooling them into sending him X-rated photos of themselves.
The report, which was made public on Tuesday, found that top administrators had allowed the former “Jeopardy!” champion to start teaching in 2020 — before the results of his background check came through.
And even when they became aware that Nguyen, 38, had just served time for swindling $300,000 from an elderly couple, administrators gave him a full-time contract and failed to communicate news of his rap sheet to Saint Ann’s families and teachers, the report charges.
The 39-page report put together by an outside law firm repeatedly cites the decisions of three administrators in Nguyen’s hiring — including then-head of school, Vincent Tompkins; then-dean of faculty, Melissa Kantor; and then-upper middle school head, Maureen Yusuf-Morales.
“Tompkins and Kantor decided to hire Nguyen, in part, because of their view that Saint Ann’s as an institution ‘believes in second chances’ and hiring someone with a criminal record was an opportunity to act in accordance with what they saw as the school’s values,” the report states.
When students eventually discovered during the 2021-22 school year that Nguyen had recently served a stint at Rikers Island for fraud and endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, investigators noted that administrators appeared to shield him from any backlash.
“Several witnesses reported to investigators that Nguyen appeared to be protected from criticism by senior administrators, including Tompkins, Kantor, and Yusuf-Morales, in partbecause his hiring was seen by those administrators as an expression of the school’s progressive values,” the report said.
“Multiple witnesses told investigators that students who expressed that they were upset ortalked about Nguyen’s conviction with other students were ‘shamed’ by Yusuf-Morales for notsupporting restorative justice or for spreading rumors,” the report added.
Separately, the report also found that when the school later became aware that a then-unidentified person was targeting students online in a bid to get sexually explicit images, administrators — yet again — failed to tell parents.
“Saint Ann’s administrators decided that communication about the issue would draw unwanted attention to the catfishing victims,” the report, conducted by the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, said.
“Thus, information that some Saint Ann’s students were being targeted by an unknown Snapchat account was not shared beyond a small group of administrators.”
The school “worked with some families who made a report to law enforcement” about the catfishing — but didn’t reach out to the district attorney’s office, according to the report.
Nguyen ended up being dramatically arrested in June in front of his students after cops alleged he was behind the catfishing scheme.
He allegedly posed as a teen on Snapchat and engaged in hundreds of sexualized chats with kids as young as 13 — trolling them for nudes and videos of sexual performances, according to a criminal complaint.
He is accused of victimizing at least six youngsters who attended a posh cluster of Brooklyn private schools: Berkeley Carroll School, Packer Collegiate Institute, Poly Prep Country Day School and his employer, Saint Ann’s School, prosecutors said.
All three administrators named in the report have since left the school. The Post’s efforts to reach them were unsuccessful Wednesday.
Tompkins, who has since retired, told the New York Times in a statement, “Winston Nguyen’s alleged actions are abhorrent and reprehensible, and they contravene the core values of Saint Ann’s School.”
Kantor declined to comment to the outlet.
Meanwhile, the school’s current head, Kenyatte Reid, apologized to the school community — describing the report’s findings as “deeply disturbing.”
“I am profoundly sorry for the pain this has caused our community and I am resolute in making sure we protect, affirm, and care for our children,” Reid wrote in a statement posted on the Saint Ann’s website.
“The report’s findings brought to light the many reasons former employee Winston Nguyen was able to exploit children at Saint Ann’s. The information presented in this report is deeply disturbing and difficult to process, but it is necessary for our path forward.”
