A former Rye Neck teacher is facing accusations of child grooming and sexual abuse of one of his former middle school students, a recently filed lawsuit claims.
Joseph Perlman, a one-time math teacher at Rye Neck High School in Mamaroneck, allegedly victimized a 13-year-old boy in his high school-level math class beginning at the start of the 2018-19 academic year, the court papers allege.
Perlman currently teaches math at Greenwich High School in Connecticut, where he was hired in 2023. Greenwich Public Schools placed him on leave in December upon learning of the sexual abuse lawsuit, the Greenwich Time reported.
Perlman initially represented himself in the lawsuit, before hiring White Plains-based lawyers Richard Portale and John Phelan. He wrote to the judge in November that the allegations against him are “wholly false” and “defamatory.”
“Plaintiff’s complaint — filed under the guise of the Child Victims Act — improperly accuses defendant of acts that never occurred and which were previously investigated without substantiation,” Perlman wrote in his preliminary statement.
His lawyers could not be reached for comment.
Village of Mamaroneck Police Department Lt. Timothy Galvin confirmed that the department, with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, investigated Perlman in 2018. But he said he could not disclose the outcome of that investigation.
The Record has submitted a records request for case details.
The victim alleges that Perlman left him “secret notes,” and groomed and sexually assaulted him when he was 13. He also says the school district failed to protect him from being frequently left alone with Perlman, even though “they caught (frequent interactions) on camera,” according to the court documents.
The student “endured sexual abuse, sexual assault and molestation and sustained serious and severe damage, harm, and injuries,” said the lawsuit, filed in Westchester Supreme Court.
At Rye Neck, the “inappropriate behavior” allegedly began during the teen’s first day of eighth grade in 2018, the lawsuit states. Perlman apparently frequently used sexual innuendos when teaching math — such as asking students to “look between the legs” when referring to the angles between lines.
The two soon grew closer as Perlman allegedly began talking with the boy after class and emailing and messaging him on “unmonitored” platforms, according to the court documents. They would also pass notes, some of which allegedly involved discussions of sexual fetishes.
Perlman already had a history of troubling behavior that had him banned from the student prom and from using an out-of-school website for teacher-student communication for “undisclosed reasons,” according to the lawsuit.
Administrators apparently became aware of Perlman’s inappropriate relationship with the student, and at some point, instructed the teacher “to cease after-school communications with the teen, court papers allege.
Instead, Perlman taught the student how to read and write in code — Caesar cipher encryption — so they could continue communicating in private, the lawsuit claims.
The messages became increasingly sexual until one day Perlman asked the teen to come to his empty classroom and perform sexual acts on him, which he did, court papers contend.
The teen eventually detailed the incidents to a few friends, who reported it to school officials, according to the lawsuit. Rye Neck administrators suspended Perlman and opened an investigation into the teacher’s conduct in 2019, according to the lawsuit.
It is unclear what the outcome of that investigation was, but school officials still allowed Perlman to enter the Rye Neck High School’s Hornidge Road campus during his suspension, court papers claim.
The school also later allegedly enrolled the boy in a course held in the same classroom where the assault had taken place and denied the child’s parents’ request to switch to another school district.
The lawsuit contends that the student has “incurred and will continue to incur medical expenses and has incurred and will continue to incur other economic damages and losses.”
He is seeking a jury trial.
Perlman, who lives in Stormville, N.Y., also served as an 11th grade advisor and the math department chairman while employed at Rye Neck. It is unclear when he left the Rye Neck district.
The lawsuit was filed in September against Perlman, the Rye Neck Union Free School District, and Rye Neck Board of Education through the Child Victims Act.
Rye Neck Schools Superintendent Michael Burke declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
