Brooklyn, NY – A 57 year old former Brooklyn high school woodshop teacher was arrested last week for engaging in lewd behavior while following a bus of schoolgirls on their way home from a Brooklyn Bais Yaakov, VIN News has learned.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Edward Falcone was arrested by police on October 16th as he drove behind the busload of girls from Lev Bais Yaakov, just blocks away from the school. According to Rabbi Shmiel Deutsch, executive director of Lev Bais Yaakov located on Nostrand Avenue between Avenues V and W, Falcone had been following the bus, which transports girls from first through seventh grade, for several days.
“The first incident happened about three weeks ago,” Rabbi Deutsch told VIN News. “The girls alerted us to the problem and we told them to keep their eyes open and to let us know if it happened again.”
The girls contacted school administration when Falcone appeared two days later and Lev Bais Yaakov filed a police report, alerted the long time driver of the school bus and contacted Shomrim.
The bus driver contacted the school several days later when a group of girls informed him that Falcone was once again following the bus and exhibiting indecent behavior. According to Rabbi Deutsch, he instructed the driver to proceed to the nearest corner and to stop there.
“I told him not to move for anything and then I called another driver who has been with me for a long time and asked him to box in the car that was behind our bus,” said Rabbi Deutsch. “Meanwhile, our secretary called 911 and Shomrim and within minutes there was a tremendous showing of police officers.”
Sergeant Jones of the NYPD’s Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information told VIN News that Falcone, who had no previous record, was arrested on four counts and charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child less than age 17, public lewdness, lewdness, exposed body in public and exposure of a person.
According to the NY Daily News who was first to report this story, Falcone, told police he had taught at Brooklyn High School of the Arts.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ex-teacher-allegedly-pleasured-behind-girls-bus-article-1.1490402#ixzz2ikbiSJIi
Following Falcone’s arrest, the administration at Lev Bais Yaakov has advised all parents to be vigilant both when their children go to school in the morning and when they come home in the afternoon.
“Many times parents assume that their kids can just walk home but that isn’t a good idea,” explained Rabbi Deutsch. “There should be an adult waiting at the bus stop or an open door through which parents can see their children getting off the bus. There should never be a gap in supervision and parents have to make sure that someone is always in charge.”
Lev Bais Yaakov also sent a letter out to parents advising them of the incident and informing them that representatives of the child safety group Magenu had been in the school to address the student body.
“We put a team together and spoke to the girls about bus safety,” said Eli Verschleiser of Magenu. “Thankfully we had done a program at Lev Bais Yaakov last year so the kids already knew how important it is to be on the alert.”
The Magenu team, headed by program director Shani Verschleiser, gave the girls an opportunity to discuss the incident and allay their fears, addressing the younger and older grades separately in order to provide age appropriate information.
“Both kids and parents have to be on the alert,” said Rabbi Deutsch. “We had Magenu come in last year because we needed our students to know just how vital it is that if you see something, you must tell someone about it.”
Go ahead and call me naive, but I’m disappointed that the girls were looking carefully enough into other people’s cars to notice anything, and that they understood what was going on.
I’m glad the media is distributing a photo and an ID on this creep, so that other victims be encouraged to come forward and file additional charges. The longer this pervert can be kept off the streets the better.
Prior victims, if there were prior victims, can always come up with many excuses not to file charges, but they bear some contributory responsibility for this incident happening. At this point, prior victims can make a big difference in protecting other children by coming forward, filing additional charges, with a goal of extending the time this piece of damaged goods stays off-line.
“There should never be a gap in supervision “
Violating this basic principle appears rampant in the frum community.
This guy has to be very sick indeed!
“we told them to keep their eyes open”.
Ummm…. maybe they should have been advised to keep their eyes CLOSED? Just sayin’
Wait a minute…Rabbi Deutsch, you waited until the girls saw him for the 2nd time before you called police?? 5 years ago a man exposed himself to my daughter and I immediately called police. A while later he assaulted and sodomized a frum girl in BP. Because I called police and a report was made, my daughter identified him and now he’s in jail. Unfortunately, the Boro Park family refused to testify to the D.A. These perpetrators are very sick. If you only rely upon yourselves and or Shomrim you may not see results. Please do call police.
Why does the city allow gay parades and marriage as that is evil as well. When bloomberg marches with all the other liberal politicians followed by old men in their string jockey underwear that’s ok.
Thank you Magenu for taking the roll is training our children on these important Safety topics.
If only my sons yeshiva would call you to train the boys I would be a less nervous mom.
Amazing program (I was there for a parent training program by Magenu)
Reply # 6
You serious now?? where does one come to another pls?? Go get a job!!