Lawsuit Accuses Syosset Professor Of Sex Abuse

SYOSSET, NY — A new lawsuit obtained by Patch accuses a professor of sexual abuse during a class on the Syosset campus of New York College of Health Professions.

During an April 2016 class in myology, the study of the musculosketetal system, the professor asked a massage therapy student to play the role of a patient in a class demonstration, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court. She was to lie on her stomach on a table while fellow students came up to touch the so-called "hip-hiking" muscle.

But the lesson took a turn for the worse, the suit claims, when the professor asked her to "lay on a table like a slut" and someone "forcefully grabbed her anus and vagina."

"The plaintiff was mortified and did not know what to do," the lawsuit said. "She got off the table as soon as she was able. Because the plaintiff had been lying on her stomach, she was unable to see who was responsible for the assault."

The muscle the students were supposed to examine is not near the anus or vagina, lawyers for the student said, and it is highly unlikely she was touched accidentally.

When the exercise concluded, a fellow classmate told her it was, in fact, the professor who had grabbed her, the suit says.

"Wow, he got a little handsie!" the other student said, referring to the professor, according to the lawsuit.

"She was horrified to know that it had, in fact, been her professor who had so egregiously violated her during the classroom exercise," the lawsuit said.

The victim reported the assault to two professors at the college and to a dean in December 2016. In the meantime, the professor began making inappropriate comments to her about her body and appearance, the lawsuit said. Following the incident, the student said it became increasingly hard to focus on school.

"She lived in fear of having to see and/or interact with the man who had publicly molested her in the classroom," the lawsuit reads.

The student's grades began to suffer while the harassment continued, the student said. She eventually withdrew from the college in February 2018.

In the lawsuit, the student said she never received a formal response or conclusion to her complaint from the college, and the professor was never disciplined for what she called his "deplorable and unlawful behavior."

The professor at the center of the lawsuit remains listed as an adjunct professor on the college's website. The site lists him as a licensed podiatrist in New York.

The student seeks punitive damages. Patch has reached out to the college for comment. A representative from the college told the New York Post on Wednesday it had not received a copy of the lawsuit and declined to comment.

The professor was not named as a party in the lawsuit. Patch couldn't immediately reach him for comment.