One of the victims is now suicidal and both of the 9-year-olds have been traumatized, their families said.
Miles McNeal, 26, an after-school program teacher whose online alter ego pushed communist propaganda and fetishized vampires, allegedly touched and photographed young students’ naked bodies, had them assume sexual positions, and showed them pictures of the genitalia of other kids while threatening them to stay silent, the victims said in court papers.
Staff and supervisors at PS 185 and its after-school program, Beacon @ 185, apparently ignored requirements that empty classrooms be locked and staffers not be alone with kids, enabling McNeal to engage in the heinous abuse at the West 112th Street school for three years, court papers show.
Administrators did nothing to stop the abuse even after McNeal was found by a PS 185 staffer alone in an empty classroom with a second-grader straddling his lap. McNeal was suspended for one day – and the victim’s father was told his child was at fault.
“They perfectly well knew that the person who was abusing the kids was taking them into rooms by himself almost every day, and their tacit approval of this behavior is abominable and speaks to the lack of care and vigilance to protect vulnerable children,” the victims lawyer, Richard Emery of Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff, Abady, Ward & Maazel, told The Post.
McNeal, who lives in Yonkers, continues to advertise “toddler childcare” and other tutoring services on TutorExtra.
He appears infatuated with vampires, and his YouTube account features sexually charged videos about the creepy creatures, including one called, “Enter Carmila! The First Lesbian Vampire!“
His victims and their families contend McNeal was able to pull them from class “with astonishing frequency.”
McNeal is believed to have had multiple victims, the children and their families said in their legal complaint against the city, the Department of Education and the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, which ran the after-school program.
The abuse was enabled by school staff and leadership, the parents contended.
One staffer — “social-emotional learning” instructor Monica Vargas, who is related to McNeal by marriage — appeared to “facilitate” his depraved behavior, according to the lawsuit.
In her role, Vargas would “interrogate” kids “about particularly traumatic or emotionally charged topics in their lives,” such as the death of a family pet, and then relay the information to McNeal “to facilitate his grooming,” the families contended.
