QUEENS — A former Rego Park computer teacher got a no jail deal for pleading guilty Wednesday to sexually abusing one of his students and endangering three others, the Queens District Attorney’s office said.
Wilbert Cortez, 52, who worked at P.S. 174, was arrested in February 2012 for allegedly molesting two elementary students. Three months later he was also charged with fondling three others.
But as part of the plea deal, Cortez pleaded guilty to one count of first degree sex abuse and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child, according to the Queens DA’s office.
Cortez must now surrender his teaching license and is facing 10 years probation. During that time he must also undergo sex offender counseling and he will be required to register as a sex offender, the DA’s office said.
He will be sentenced on March 30, authorities said.
His attorney, Donald Vogelman, said Thursday that “the District Attorney’s office and the judge agreed that probation was the proper sentence.”
Vogelman also said that Cortez “will receive counseling and he won’t work as a teacher.”
He originally faced 7 years in prison.
The Department of Education said that Cortez, who first began working at city schools in 1986, has not been on DOE payroll since 2012.
In 2000, Cortez was also disciplined for inappropriately touching two students at P.S. 184 in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
