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Hell's Kitchen High School Teacher Charged with Sex Abuse

By Patrick Hedlund | February 28, 2012 8:16pm | Updated on February 29, 2012 10:45am
The High School of Graphic Communication Arts on West 49th Street in Hell's Kitchen.
The High School of Graphic Communication Arts on West 49th Street in Hell's Kitchen.
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DNAinfo/Jill Colvin

MANHATTAN — A Hell's Kitchen high school teacher was arrested Tuesday for allegedly inappropriately touching a 14-year-old student at school earlier this month, police said.

Darryl Lynch, 55, was charged with forcible touching, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly touching the girl on two occasions inside the High School of Graphic Communication Arts on West 49th Street, the NYPD said.

The incidents allegedly occurred on Feb. 8 and then again sometime between then and Feb. 22, police added.

Lynch, of Bridgeport, Conn., has worked as a Reserve Officers Training Corps teacher at the school since 1997, a Department of Education official said. He was paid $100,049 a year.

He was reassigned from the school on Tuesday.

"I am outraged by these charges, and have no tolerance for adults who betray the trust of their students and school communities," said School Commissioner Dennis Walcott in a statement.

"With the changes we have announced, any individual who has an inappropriate relationship with a student will be removed from the classroom as soon as allegations surface and, moving forward, be barred from teaching in our schools if those charges have merit."

Lynch is the fifth employee in the school system to be charged with a sex crime this year. Last week, Brett Picou, 30, a teacher at P.S. 52 in Queens, was charged with allegedly hugging and groping 9- and 10-year-old girls. Wilbert Cortez, 49 a teacher at P.S. 174 in Rego Park, Queens, was arrested several weeks ago for allegedly abusing two elementary school students.

Earlier this month, Gregory Atkins was arrested after allegedly abusing an 8-year-old boy at P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side. And in January, Taleek Brooks, a former teacher's aide at a school in Brooklyn, was arrested for allegedly filming child porn in a classroom.