Released Sex Offender Charged With Abuse of Girl at Y.M.C.A.
By Dean E. Murphy
Originally published in The New York Times, April 7, 2002
A former president of an elementary school PTA in Brooklyn who was convicted in 1995 of sexual abuse has been arrested on a new allegation involving a girl at the Flatbush Y.M.C.A., the authorities said.
The man, Gary Session, 38, was in custody yesterday and was charged with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child, the police said. The girl, who is 12, told the authorities that Mr. Session touched her breasts while they played basketball last month.
The girl's mother reported the incident to the police on March 16 and Mr. Session turned himself in on Friday night, the police said.
Officials at the Flatbush Y.M.C.A. acknowledged knowing Mr. Session but would not answer questions yesterday. The police said that he once was a coach with the Junior Knicks basketball program at the Y.M.C.A., but that he was not coaching at the time of the reported incident.
According to the New York State Department of Correctional Services, Mr. Session was sentenced in 1995 to two to six years in prison for sexual abuse. His release date on state records was Jan. 5, 2001.
In May 1994, four girls at Public School 249 in Flatbush accused him of molesting them in the school auditorium. At the time, Mr. Session had two children of his own in the school and he worked as a substitute teacher's assistant at another school in the district.
Shortly after the accusations were made, he was elected president of the PTA. Many parents later complained that they had not been informed of the accusations and that Mr. Session had been given too much access to the school while the charges were being investigated.
Mr. Session was eventually forced to resign the PTA post after another accusation of sexual abuse was made public. In October 1994, he was arrested on a sexual abuse charge involving a 7-year-old daughter of a family friend, who accused him of molesting her at his home. At the time, Mr. Session denied any wrongdoing.
