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Old 04-13-2005, 09:59 AM   #769
Radii
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Join Date: Jul 2001
hxxp://www.newyorkpost.com/news/regionalnews/44486.htm

TRYST TEACHER'S SHAME

By DAVID ANDREATTA

April 13, 2005 --

EXCLUSIVE

A Manhattan high-school teacher slept with her student for months and got pregnant with his child — but gave him only a barely passing 65 in social-studies class, according to a bombshell report obtained by The Post.

The 18-year-old boy toy from the HS for Health Professions and Human Services shrugged off the grade, but couldn't forgive his teacher, Rhianna Ellis, 25, for reneging on her promise to abort the pregnancy.

The details of the sordid 10-month affair — which included romps at a Queens motel and "one last time" in Ellis' Queens home — were chronicled in a recent letter from Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon to Chancellor Joel Klein.

A spokeswoman for Condon's office confirmed the authenticity of the letter, but declined to comment on the case, which was closed in late February.

The teen, whom investigators describe only as "Student B," said he had sex with Ellis four times a week at the onset of their affair in August 2003 — settling for three times a week as the relationship wound down in March 2004, according to the letter.

By the end of May, the student had broken up with his teacher because she was "jealous, possessive and paranoid," but not before engaging in a final tryst at her home — with disastrous consequences.

The student told probers that Ellis called him in June to tell him that she was pregnant with his child, investigators said. When he blew up in anger and suggested she have an abortion, Ellis allegedly agreed.

By last fall, however, Ellis was five months pregnant, and in October filed for an unpaid "restoration of health" sabbatical, investigators said.

Ellis, through her lawyer, declined to be interviewed by detectives. But yesterday, she denied that her 2-month-old son was the result of an affair with her former student.

"The claims are false," Ellis told The Post, cradling the newborn in a mobile car seat outside her Glendale home.

But phone records seized by probers confirmed that a very long relationship took place.

In fact, the investigators said the pair exchanged more than 1,000 calls and text messages in an 11-month span over two cellphones owned by Ellis — one of which she bought for her teen lover after his phone was taken from him as a result of a $700 bill.

He also called Ellis some 450 times from his dad's home at all hours of the day and night between October 2002 and April 2004, the probers said.

The teen first became smitten with Ellis when she was his teacher in the 10th grade, telling investigators that she was "hot," according to the document.

He was so lovestruck that he didn't even mind when she gave him a grade of 65 two years later, investigators said.

"According to Student B, that grade 'wasn't bad,' considering he did not do any homework, did not pass any tests, and was late almost every day," Condon wrote to Klein.

It was not clear precisely how old the boy was when the two allegedly began having sex. The age of consent is 17.

Investigators began probing the affair last August, when the high school's principal reported receiving an anonymous letter about the matter in her school mailbox.

Even though the probe was being conducted before Ellis filed for sabbatical, she was not removed from the classroom, as is normally the case with teachers under investigation for misconduct.

Condon has recommended to the city Department of Education that Ellis be fired from her $40,225-a-year job and barred from working in the school system again.
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