Former Montessori International School headmistress Lina Sinha sentenced to jail for 9-year relationship with student

A 46-year-old Montessori teacher in New York City was sentenced to at least 2 1/3 years in prison for having sex with a then 13-year-old boy.

Lina Sinha, a former headmistress at Montessori International School on the Upper East Side, is said to have had a relationship with the boy starting in 1995 when he was 13 and she was 29.

During a trial in 2007, the victim told a jury the relationship started after he became upset over an academic competition and Sinha kissed him on the mouth.

He said the romance continued from there with Sinha performing oral sex on him.  He said the actual sexual intercourse did not start until he was 15.

The victim said most of the trysts took place in the school’s van and on school premises.

The affair lasted until 2004 when the victim was 22 and was training to be a police officer in Queens.

The victim said Sinha did not take the break well and she began filing false accusations of assault and rape charges against him.  He eventually came forward and filed charges against her.

Since her conviction, Sinha has been working for various charities.

During sentencing today, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman said Sinha “hijacked [the victim’s] life as a child.  She did try to destroy his life. So time has passed, but the victim has not regained the childhood the defendant has stolen from him, and I presume he will never.”

Sinha spoke briefly, and tearfully, at the proceeding.  She said the past eight years have been extremely difficult for her and her family.

“Most people thought I did a very good job,” in education, she told the judge. “If you deem it fit for me to go to prison, then that is what I will do,” she said. “I have gone through their life savings,” she complained, referring to her family. “I have gone through my life savings a long time ago.”

Sinha tried through veteran defense lawyer Gerald Shargel to argue for a reduction in sentence. She suffers glaucoma and diabetes, and has fainting spells and anxiety problems, Shargel told the judge.

“The punishment should fit the crime,” he said, referring to the conduct as “a love affair” and alluding to trial testimony in which the cop had admitted keeping the relationship secret as a boy because he’d enjoyed it and didn’t want it to stop.

“There was a love affair that continued,” the lawyer told the judge. “You heard the victim say he enjoyed the relationship. He found the relationship pleasurable. He expressed no damage, no harm.

“If every situation of love gone wrong and retaliatory behavior was prosecuted, they’d have to build more prisons,” Shargel argued.