NYC teacher fired after being indicted for trying to film 11-year-old boy in bathroom stall
A math teacher being sued for allegedly filming an 11-year-old student in a bathroom stall has been indicted on child abuse charges — and was fired from his job at a prestigious Manhattan all-boys school, The Post has learned.
Matthew Chicas, 29, faces charges of unlawful surveillance, possessing a sexual performance by a child and endangering the welfare of a child for trying to record the boy urinating from the next-door stall with his cellphone, court papers allege.
Chicas, who was a teacher at Xavier High School in Chelsea, allegedly pulled the perverted stunt on April 15 while he was working at the REACH leadership program and Jesuit preparatory class for middle school boys that was being held at Regis High School on the Upper East Side.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on the indictment Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Xavier — which had suspended Chicas after his April arrest — announced in an email to the school community Wednesday that the educator “is no longer employed” at the prep school.
School president Jack Raslowsky explained to The Post that the school didn’t renew Chicas’ contract for the coming school year following his suspension that continued through the end of the 2022-2023 term.
Raslowsky declined to comment further.
Chicas was freed following his arraignment, as the charges are not bail eligible, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.
The alleged victim reported going to the 4th-floor bathroom at Regis which was empty except for one person in a stall when he heard a noise — possibly of someone moving — as he began to urinate, according to a criminal complaint against Chicas.
The boy looked up and saw a green cell phone with a black camera hanging over the top of the stall and pointing “down at him,” the complaint alleges.
A school official checked the surveillance footage and saw Chicas walking into the bathroom before the incident, and coming out of the restroom right after the boy ran out, the complaint states.
Prosecutors plan to call that school official, as well as the REACH program director, to testify at trial about the boy’s recounting of the incident and about checking surveillance cameras and spotting Chicas coming in and out of the bathroom, according to court papers.
The program director went to the police with the footage the same day, court papers state.
In June, the child’s mother Olaya Lopez filed suit against the school over the alleged incident claiming her son “JC” had been molested by Chicas.
Chicas is due back in court on September 13.
His criminal defense attorney Donald Vogelman said his client “is not guilty of the charges and he looks forward to his day in court.”
