No Bail for Teacher in Sex Case
By Herbert Lowe, Staff Writer
Originally published by Newsday, June 12, 2001
A Bronx judge yesterday denied bail for a former public elementary school teacher indicted on multiple sex abuse and sodomy charges.
State Supreme Court Justice John Byrne remanded Milton McFarlane, 38, back to Rikers Island even though a court-appointed defense attorney said that a church was willing to pay the bail and be responsible for McFarlane until trial.
McFarlane taught second grade at Public School 78 until his arrest May 2.
He has told police that he is HIV-positive. McFarlane, who was fired after his arrest, is due back in court Thursday, when Byrne is expected to consider whether a judge from outside the Bronx should handle the case.
The attorney, Lewis Alperin, asked the judge to grant bail because, while the charges are serious, similar ones against other teachers have proven to be untrue.
"No one knows at this point what the eventual outcome will be," Alperin said, adding McFarlane of Poughkeepsie has "no place to go." The prosecutor, Joseph Muroff, a deputy chief of the domestic violence-sex crimes bureau of the Bronx District Attorney's Office, countered by saying McFarlane faces at least 50 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charges.
McFarlane is charged with six counts of first-degree sexual abuse, two counts of first-degree sodomy and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The charges stemmed from alleged sexual assaults on three boys several times in 1998 and this year.
Muroff also reminded the judge that McFarlane has already had a second chance: The Board of Education has acknowledged that after a student accused McFarlane of molestation in 1998, he was not supposed to be alone with children.
Alperin did not identify the church but told Byrne that McFarlane's mother worships there. The teacher's mother attended the hearing along with a half-dozen other family and church members.
They all declined to comment.
