Preschool Intern Accused of Sex Abuse Can Be Kept in Jail, Judge Says

The International Preschools on East 45th Street where
Malthe Thomsen had worked.
 Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times

A Manhattan judge ruled on Thursday that an #intern at a preschool who was accused last month of inappropriately touching 13 children could be kept in jail longer, saying prosecutors had enough evidence to establish “probable cause that the defendant committed a felony.”

The intern, Malthe Thomsen, had come to the attention of the authorities after an assistant teacher at the International Preschools on East 45th Street told other colleagues on May 30 that she had observed him interact with children in a way “that she believed bordered on inappropriate touching,” according to a letter the preschool’s director sent to families enrolled at the school. His lawyers, however, questioned the way the evidence was obtained.

Mr. Thomsen, a 22-year-old college student from Denmark, was “placed under observation” by other teachers who “reported seeing nothing inappropriate,” the school’s director, Donna Cohen, wrote in a letter.

The school “deemed the accusation unfounded” after interviewing other teachers who did not offer any corroboration, according to Ms. Cohen.

The assistant teacher who originally made the allegation was subsequently fired, although the school said there was no connection to the case.

“While it is not appropriate to discuss specific personnel decisions, the school can affirmatively state the termination of an assistant teacher there, was not because that teacher may have raised allegations against Malthe,” said Marcia Horowitz, an outside spokeswoman retained by the school.

At some point, the police became involved and on June 27, Mr. Thomsen was arrested on charges of #sexabuse. He was accused, in a criminal complaint, of taking children’s hands and placing them over his “genitals over clothing” on nine occasions. The complaint also accuses him of pressing “the head of a 10th child against defendant’s genitals over clothing,” among other allegations.

In State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday, prosecutors played an hourlong videotape of an interview with Mr. Thomsen conducted on June 27, while he was in police custody, and which a prosecutor, Nicole Blumberg, said included his admissions that he “had children touch his private areas and touched their private areas as well.”

But it was unclear what precisely was said because the audio from the videotape was piped through headphones available only to the lawyers, a witness, Mr. Thomsen and the judge, Gilbert Hong.

Ms. Blumberg, the chief of the Manhattan district attorney’s child abuse unit, had asked that others in court not be permitted to hear the audio to protect the identities of children mentioned during the interview, which was conducted by a prosecutor, Rachel Ferrari.

The video showed the burly Mr. Thomsen sitting at a small round table with Ms. Ferrari and a police detective. He appeared to be composed during the exchange, occasionally gesturing or raising a hand to his face.

After watching the video, Judge Hong said: “I believe that there is probable cause that the defendant committed a felony” and ordered that Mr. Thomsen be held.

After the hearing Mr. Thomsen’s lawyers, David Fisher and Jane Fisher-Byrialsen, said that the recorded statements from Mr. Thomsen, who had been in custody for about seven hours before the videotaped session, had been coerced, partly because their client conceded that he could have touched children inappropriately only because detectives had told him that they had videotapes that showed that behavior. The tapes, the lawyers said, did not exist and Mr. Thomsen had no independent recollection of the actions that he had admitted to.

“This is another false confession case,” Ms. Fisher-Byrialsen said. “You’re telling me you have a video, he says, so I guess it happened but I have no memory of it.”

The lawyers said that their client had been unjustly accused by the assistant teacher, whom they said had a history of complaining about co-workers.

Mr. Thomsen had worked at the East 45th Street campus, one of three locations of the International Preschools, since February. In a letter to parents, Ms. Cohen noted that it was school policy that an intern “would not have been alone with children and we learned nothing to indicate that he was ever alone with children.”

She added that he had come recommended from an educational program in Denmark.

“We are distressed and deeply concerned that an I.P.S. intern has been arrested on charges of inappropriate behavior with students at our 45th Street location,” the school said in a statement. “The welfare of our children is our deepest concern and our thoughts are with our children and their families during this difficult time.”

Mr. Thomsen’s mother, Birgitte Thomsen, who had flown to New York from Denmark, said that he had come to New York from Copenhagen to work as an intern. She said that Mr. Thomsen worked with children in Danish preschools for years with no allegations of wrongdoing.

“We are a family of preschool teachers,” she said. “He’s from a loving, caring normal family, and that’s how he behaves when he is with children.” NY Times