NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton school superintendent said he plans to take a closer look at a teacher’s complaint that a co-worker sexually assaulted her in a classroom last fall.
A John F. Kennedy Middle School teacher was placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday after being accused of assaulting a female colleague. Herschel M. Levine, 33, of Northampton, pleaded not guilty in Northampton District Court on Monday to charges of indecent assault on someone 14 or older and accosting another person.
His attorney, Jesse Adams, did not offer comment when reached by a reporter, and Levine did not return a call for comment Tuesday. He is due back in court June 3.
Levine began working as a substitute in Northampton in 2010 and was brought on as a regular staff member in 2011, according to city payroll data. Court records indicate he also has no known prior criminal history dating back to 1996.
John Provost, the Northampton school superintendent, said in an email that an internal investigation was conducted after the alleged incidents were reported in December, but noted that more has been revealed since then through the court proceeding.
“Appropriate action was taken based upon the findings of that investigation,” Provost said, but he did not offer specifics. He also would not say when the second investigation would take place.
Provost said the district was not aware of some of the allegations the woman reported to police and that the second internal investigation would be underway “once (the district) is able to,” he said in the email.
The alleged victim in the case reported the incidents to Northampton police in December as a last resort, according to a police report, because she did not think the school was taking her account seriously. In a meeting with JFK school officials, she had previously reported some, but not all, of what Herschel allegedly did to her last fall.
“The explicit content and details of this were not conveyed correctly to the principal at our meeting because I was scared, and still in shock and disbelief about what had happened,” the woman wrote in her statement to police.
Julie Spencer-Robinson, president of the Northampton Association of School Employees, the union that represents teachers at JFK Middle School, said Tuesday that she stood by JFK Principal Lesley Wilson and the internal investigation process.
“The principal conducted a thorough investigation and took all the necessary steps to protect the rights of both parties involved in the process,” Spencer-Robinson said. “She was very thorough and very professional.”
Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said Tuesday that, although he was not familiar with the specifics of this case, it was not uncommon for school officials to be less than forthcoming regarding information learned during internal investigations. That includes the parties who are involved in the investigation, he said.
Scott added school administrators are “significantly” limited in how much information they can share.
“Especially with an ongoing investigation, we advise our superintendents all the time (that) when they’re involved with these kinds of matters, they need to take the advice of the school district’s attorneys,” he said.
The woman, who is also a teacher at JFK Middle School, told police that Levine first approached her when the two were at the World War II Club in Northampton the night of Nov. 13, 2015, according to the report. It was there Levine asked the woman several times to have sex with him, which she refused, according to court records.
A week later, when the woman was feeling sick, she said she wandered into Levine’s classroom when no students were there, according to the report. That’s when Levine asked the woman to help him remove papers from a classroom closet.
Inside the closet, Levine asked her, as he had done a week prior, if the woman would have sex with him, police said. “No one will know. It can be our secret,” he allegedly said.
“I already told you before, no,” she replied, according to her statement to police. “You are married with kids, and we work at a school with children present. It is not going to happen.”
Levine asked if she, instead, would watch him masturbate. She declined. He told her it was something he did in the classroom on a regular basis, according to the report, and that he did so in a tall cabinet near the entrance of the classroom and at least one other location.
As she walked out of the classroom, the woman told police, Levine followed closely behind and pressed his clothed erection into her backside, making gyrating motions, according to the report.
“I left his class in a daze,” the woman wrote in the report. “I felt triggered by fear and like my head was disconnected from my body. I was scared not only for myself but I couldn’t stop thinking about how scared I am for the welfare and safety of the students that I care about so much.”
When police performed a walk-through of the classroom in December to take photographs and collect evidence, according to the report, police shined an alternative light source on the areas where Levine allegedly masturbated, revealing a substance on the inside of the cabinet that was then collected for analysis by a crime lab.
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.