PERV TEACH SHOCK (High School ignored rap: suit)

PFMLIT General, LONG ISLAND NEWS, SENTENCING, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF TRUST, TEACHERS SCHOOL STAFF

Anthony Correnti, a 28-year-old former music teacher, pleaded guilty to six of the 52 counts with which he was indicted in Suffolk, as part of a plea bargain in 2004.  In return for his plea, he was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison.  He will be eligible for parole after serving the minimum of 10 years.  He faces similar charges in Nassau and Manhattan.  The computerized inventory of girls in various stages of electronic courtship and seduction was the road map for an investigation that would span three counties and rack up 138 counts of sexual misconduct with children against the former music teacher and sometime rock musician.   He allegedly had sex with a then 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet.  Correnti taught at Seaford High School for six months before resigning last March 2004 and he had taught at the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan previously.  Court papers charge that the city allowed him to teach and be alone with students even after an investigator found he had engaged in sexual misconduct and should be fired.  The HS for Envionmental Studies ignored the report for nine months, while he carried on affairs with two 14 year old girls, according to the explosive lawsuit, filed by one of the victims.  The school then not only allowed him to resign but gave him a favorable reference.  

He was arrested on January 18, 2001, after the parents of a 13-year-old West Islip girl accused him of sexually abusing her.  At least 10,000 photographs and more than 500 video clips of children engaging in sex were found on his home computer.  Taken back to police headquarters, his two computers yielded hundreds, then thousands, of images of children as young as 4 years old, performing sex acts on adult men.  He was indicted on multiple charges of statutory rape, sodomy and sex abuse for allegedly having sex with two 14-year-old students of his at the High School for Environmental Studies.  He was arraigned on similar charges in Suffolk.

Correnti is serving 22 to 66 years in prison.

(New York)