Two teenage girls say that a teacher at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn who had pressured them to share naked photographs and videos sent “a revenge porn blast with dozens of explicit pictures” of them to his own students, according to a lawsuit filed by the girls in federal court on Thursday.
The lawsuit names the school, school administrators and the teacher, Winston Nguyen, as defendants. The girls, who were 13 when the teacher first contacted them and who were not students at Saint Ann’s, claim that the school and its leaders were negligent and show an unwillingness to accept accountability.
The scandal has been roiling the school for nearly two years. Mr. Nguyen, 39, was arrested in June 2024 outside of Saint Ann’s. He pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge of using a child in a sexual performance and five misdemeanors. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
The scandal at Saint Ann’s — an elite school that charges about $60,000 for tuition, boasts high Ivy League acceptance rates and is favored by celebrities, artists and Wall Street executives — generated enormous press attention, including a front-page New York Times account of Mr. Nguyen’s conduct at Saint Ann’s and his personal story.
But the lawsuit marks the first time that some of Mr. Nguyen’s victims have publicly shared their own stories of how they unwittingly became entangled with a predatory teacher, and how they have suffered since.
When Mr. Nguyen was hired by the school in the summer of 2020, school administrators knew that he had previously served time in prison. The Times reported in December 2024 that at least one staff member was aware of his criminal past — he had bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from an aging couple he worked for as a home aide — and unsuccessfully urged administrators not to give him a job.
Mr. Nguyen started working at the school as a clerk. School administrators considered making him an assistant to the head of school, but decided against it because of his criminal record. He was later made a middle school math teacher.
He was known by the school’s leadership to sometimes sleep at the school, to curry favor with students through gifts and snacks and, according to the lawsuit, to look them up on social media. But teachers, students and parents who expressed discomfort with his conduct were “shamed” for being “racist or not progressive,” according to a 2024 law firm report commissioned by the school. (Mr. Nguyen is a son of Vietnamese immigrants.)
Representatives of Saint Ann’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court, in the Eastern District of New York.
The lawsuit details how Mr. Nguyen impersonated a teenage boy online, gaining credibility by building a Snapchat network that included many Saint Ann’s students, as well as those from other private schools in Brooklyn.
Mr. Nguyen corresponded with the girls at all hours, including during school days when he would have been teaching at Saint Ann’s. He flattered them and told them that he was struggling through the difficult emotions brought on by his parents’ divorce.
The messages became increasingly explicit, with Mr. Nguyen telling one of the girls that she “made him horny” and that he wanted “a blowjob,” according to the complaint. He told the other girl he would like to have “a threesome with another of her friends.”
He sent the girls videos of masturbation and “pushed both girls for explicit pictures — first of them in their underwear, and then with full frontal nudity.” Eventually, he asked for videos of them “engaged in sexual acts.”
“The girls felt pressure to comply because they perceived Nguyen to be a peer in their social circles with significant social clout given his account’s large network of Saint Ann’s connections,” according to the lawsuit.
After the girls cut off contact with the teacher, he shared naked photographs of them with other students.
In early 2024, the complaint says, Saint Ann’s leadership was twice alerted that images of young girls were being disseminated to the school’s students on Snapchat.
“Saint Ann’s met with its own affected students but took no other steps to help,” according to the complaint. The school did not report the incidents to the police, the lawsuit said.
“Only the school knew about both the revenge porn circulating and Nguyen’s history of misconduct,” the complaint said. Neither girl nor their parents have received an apology from Saint Ann’s.
(This is not the school’s first scandal involving sexual misconduct. In 2019, Saint Ann’s released a report that acknowledged that 19 former staff and faculty members had potentially engaged in sexual relations or inappropriate behavior with students.)
Mr. Nguyen was arrested after the girls who filed the lawsuit went to the police. Statements they had written were read at his sentencing hearing last year.
“Photos of me as a naked preteen will forever be on the internet,” one of them wrote. “You ruined my life, broke my ability to trust, and hurt any chance at loving myself.”
Katherine Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on New York City.
The post Girls Sue Brooklyn Prep School and Former Teacher Over Sex Crimes appeared first on New York Times.
