Bronx Teacher Caught With Prostitute Can Sue City For $7,500 Fine

A New York City teacher that was fined thousands of dollars after being caught with a hooker is retaliating by suing the Department of Education, the New York Post reported.

A Manhattan Supreme Court judge said Monday the teacher, 65-year-old Edgar Ortiz has every right to sue the DOE when the department argued that Ortiz's sexual relations sullied his image as a teacher.

Judge Carol Huff wrote the city did not "offer any legal basis for penalizing a teacher for illegal conduct that has little or no apparent connection with his teaching duties," the Post reported.

Ortiz, an elementary school teacher, was arrested in April 2012 when cops found him in his Toyota minivan in the Bronx. According to police reports, Ortiz was on top of a prostitute with no pants on, and they were "making thrusting motions with their hips," the New York Daily News reported.

"She's a young lady," Ortiz told police at the time of his arrest, the Daily News reported. "I don't know her name I picked her up on Southern Boulevard and 178th St. for $20. I jumped on it because it was so cheap."

Ortiz did not tell the school he works at, P.S. 73 in the Bronx, about his arrest. When the school found out he was taken from his classroom and put under investigation. School officials called for the teacher's termination. Instead Ortiz, whose salary is $89,307, kept his job and a disciplinary hearing fined him $7,500, the Daily News reported.

Ortiz, who was also arrested in 1996 for sexual abuse, filed a lawsuit against the DOE fine in May 2012.

"Teachers are not indentured servants subject to school direction and control 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Ortiz said, according to the Daily News. "Teachers must have a zone in which they may exercise their own prerogatives and activities."

A lawyer for the city, Daniel LaRose, said he was unhappy with the judge's refusal to dismiss the suit.

"We are very disappointed in the Court's decision," LaRose said, according to the Post. "Given that DOE can submit additional legal papers, we'll be emphasizing the importance of taking action to ensure that educators- who are entrusted with our children's care- do not engage in the same sort of inappropriate conduct as Mr. Ortiz."