Principal Gets 7 Years For 9 Year Relationship With An Under Aged Student

After years of being free on bail, a former principal from a Montessori school is now sentenced to spend up to seven years behind bars for her nearly-decade-long affair with one of her students.



Lina Sinha, now 46, was told off by a New York judge during a court hearing today as she turned herself in to spend between 28-months and seven years behind bars.


The relationship dates back to 1995, when Sinha was a principal at the Montessori International School in Manhattan and she began a romantic affair with one of her 13-year-old students.


It all started when she kissed the then-eighth-grader was upset over an academic competition and the then-29-year-old Sinha kissed him.


‘I was very sad, and Lina kissed me on the mouth,’ the victim told the jury when the trial began in 2007.


The romance proceeded from there, with Sinha performing oral sex on the boy, first having intercourse with him when he turned 15-years-old, and meeting up for trysts in Montessori school vans and having sex on school furniture.


According to The New York Times, the affair lasted until 2004, when the young man was 22-years-old and reportedly broke up with his former lover.


At that point, he had dropped out of college and started training as a police officer in Queens. She did not take the breakup well, and began filing false accusations of assault and rape to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which prompted the victim- whose name has been withheld as is done with cases involving sex abuse- to come forward and report the relationship.


‘This is a woman of every advantage, and she preyed on her victim for years,’ The New York Post reports judge Carol Berman as saying during her court appearance on Monday.


‘She hijacked his 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 for him, and I presume he never will.’


During the time that has elapsed between the beginning of the trial in 2007, the victim has finished training and continued his career as a police officer, which he continues to this day.

Sinha, however, has spent her time working with animal care charities, playing tennis and running the New York City marathon.


During her court appearance Monday, when she was turned over to authorities to begin her court sentence, she was unapologetic and complained more than anything else.


‘If you deem it fit for me to go to prison, then that is what I will do,’ the Post reported. ‘I have gone through (my family’s) life savings. I have gone through my life savings a long time ago.’


Her lawyer argued that her sentence should be reduced because of her fainting spells, diabetes and anxiety issues, but the judge refused.During her original sentencing- which would have put Sinha behind bars for up to 14 years involving another victim and an additional illegal relationship- the judge quoted Shakespeare in explaining the need for her significant jail-time:


‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.’