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Students Forced to Write Personal Info in Holiday Cards to Jailed Felon

By DNAinfo Staff on February 15, 2012 1:46pm

A Queens teacher reportedly told her students to write Christmas cards to a convicted felon.
A Queens teacher reportedly told her students to write Christmas cards to a convicted felon.
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DNAinfo/Nick Hirshon

QUEENS — A teacher had her students extend a little holiday cheer from the school house to the big house — making them draw cards for a convicted felon without telling the school or their parents — a city investigation found.

Melissa Dean, a fifth-grade teacher at P.S. 143 in Corona, told her students to make Christmas cards for people without family "who were lonely," according to a report from the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools, which was forwarded to DOE Chancellor Dennis Walcott Feb. 15.

Instead, she took the 25 students' cards and mailed them to her friend, John Coccarelli, who was serving time upstate for weapons possession and violating an order of protection, the report found.

The report, which was released Wednesday and which recommends Dean's firing, said she encouraged her students to put their names and home addresses in the handmade crayon-drawn cards, before mailing them to the prison in December. In addition, she wrote the name of each of her students on the back of the cards before mailing them, according to the report. Dean taught English as a second language, the report says.

She did not receive permission from school administrators nor the students' parents to let them correspond with the inmate — and when she was confronted by her principal after she learned of the incident, Dean said she "thought it was a nice thing to do."

Dean also penned a card of her own, in which she wrote, "from your Wifey" and signed it with a drawing of a heart, the report said. Her daughter wrote, "Hi John. This is [name]. I hope you have a Merry Christmas," followed by a smiley face. 

The cards never reached Coccarelli. A correction officer at the Groveland Correctional Facility in Sonyea, where Coccarelli is serving time, opened the envelope from Dean with 27 cards inside Dec. 23, and siezed them on the grounds that they were inappropriate for a convicted felon, the report said.

One of the 25 students who made the cards told investigators that Dean did not tell the class anything about the man or woman to whom they were writing.

The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation referred the case to the Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, the letter said.

Dean did not speak to the investigators.