Math teacher at elite Brooklyn school arrested in investigation into sexualized images

A math teacher at an elite Brooklyn private school has been arrested amid an investigation into sexualized images shared on social media, leaving influential parents desperate for answers about what happened just days before graduation.

Police arrested Winston Nguyen, a former Danger! candidate who was charged in 2017 with siphoning a large sum of money from an elderly couple to finance a lavish lifestyle – last Thursday at Saint Ann’s School in celebrity hotspot Brooklyn Heights in front of a crowd of students. He was released on Saturday.

No charges have been filed against Nguyen, but he remains a suspect in an ongoing investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, which confirmed his arrest to The Daily Beast.

When contacted by a Daily Beast reporter, Nguyen laughed and said New York Magazine had “a 12-hour head start” on this reporting and referred us to his lawyer.

A spokeswoman for Saint Ann’s – where tuition can be as much as $60,000 a year – said prosecutors “have confirmed to us that Winston is a suspect in an ongoing investigation related to the distribution of intimate images via social media.”

“Following his arrest on Thursday,” she added, “he was immediately placed on leave from school and remains on leave.”

On June 6, Kenyatte Reid, the principal of Saint Ann’s School, sent an email to parents announcing Nguyen’s arrest, but acknowledged that he did not know “the specific charges.”

“The Assistant District Attorney informed me this evening that his arrest is related to an investigation dating back to January 2024,” Reid wrote.

A few days later, Reid sent another email update explaining that Nguyen was a suspect in an ongoing investigation related to “inappropriate sexualized images” and that he was prohibited from contacting anyone in the school community or attending school.

Reid added that prosecutors have asked any “families with information about Winston’s behavior or suspicious activity on Snapchat or other social media” to come forward. “This incident is very disturbing for all of us,” Reid said. “We pride ourselves on our amazing teachers and a learning environment built on trust.”

The prestigious school boasts celebrity alumni including actresses Lena Dunham and Jennifer Connelly, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (who attended the school for a year and did not graduate), and Levon and Maya Hawke, the children of Hollywood stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Parents at the school include television personalities, best-selling authors, lawyers and investors.

The grade-free art school is so popular that actor Matt Damon reportedly couldn’t get a place for his own children in 2016.

But there have also been controversies over the years. For example, in 2019, an internal investigation uncovered several cases in which staff members – including founding principal Stanley Bosworth – had behaved sexually abusively toward students between the 1970s and 1990s.

Nguyen was hired in 2020, the Saint Ann’s spokeswoman said, and his last job was as a middle and high school math teacher. When asked if school administrators knew about his criminal past, the spokeswoman said the school conducts extensive background checks, including criminal records, when hiring employees.

“A non-violent criminal record does not necessarily mean that it is a bar to employment,” she added. “The school carefully and diligently evaluates whether an applicant is a good fit for the school.”

“We are fully cooperating with law enforcement in their efforts and are currently focused on helping our students process this news.”

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Nguyen’s attorney, Frank Rothman, said prosecutors declined to immediately file charges in the case pending further investigations.

“That’s the current state of affairs,” Rothman told The Daily Beast. “They are investigating and will make a decision in the near future on what he is charged with, if anything.”

“I don’t think it’s just not an issue anymore,” Rothman added. “There will be an issue. The question is how big and when?”

On Thursday, parents were wondering how Nguyen was able to get a job at the prestigious Saint Ann’s despite his tabloid-fed scam with the elderly couple, and a lawsuit he filed against the city’s corrections director for allegedly censoring newspapers and failing to provide socks and underwear at Rikers Island.

“What the hell? How did we get here?” one Saint Ann parent told The Daily Beast. “What is the vetting process? What is the background process?

“He wasn’t a teacher before,” they added. “He was smart and went to great schools – but if you’re going to hire a former Rikers inmate who’s been charged with a serious crime, I think we have to go beyond a simple interview and resume.”

“The thought that this was someone close to my children… it’s terrifying.”

Parents said they learned that male students had received friend requests from social media accounts that were later linked to Nguyen.

“I consider him a manipulator and a fraud,” they said. “He defrauded an elderly couple and came in as a Covid employee under another school administration.”

A summer 2021 edition of the school Saint Ann’s Times noted that Nguyen “joined us this year as a special assistant for Covid-related projects” and “will remain as a special assistant to the administrative team” and “will also teach a math class.”

A teaching directory for the 2021-2022 school year lists Nguyen as a graduate of Columbia University and a private tutor of math, Latin, English and standardized tests, and lists his previous positions as a diversity consultant at other schools in the city.

This is not the first time that Nguyen has been in the crosshairs of the justice system.

In August 2017, while working as a home health aide, Nguyen was arrested for defrauding a 96-year-old blind man and his 92-year-old wife in Manhattan out of more than $300,000. The arrest came three years after he was arrested in Danger.

Prosecutors said that in 2015, six years after he was hired as an aide to the elderly couple, Nguyen used the couple’s credit cards and bank account to finance trips to Florida and tickets to the ballet and Broadway shows.

As part of his plot, Nguyen even went so far as to falsify the couple’s bank statements and pose as their son in conversations with the homeowners association, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said at the time.

Rothman told The Daily Beast that Nguyen pleaded guilty, served a prison sentence and probation, and was ordered to pay restitution.

“We were so sad for this couple,” a worker in the couple’s Upper East Side apartment told New York Daily News in 2017. “They trusted him so much. He betrayed them. He pretended to be a big shot, a millionaire.”

While awaiting trial at Rikers, Nguyen frequently complained about conditions at the notorious prison, even calling into a radio show twice to express his displeasure to then-Mayor De Blasio.

According to a letter Nguyen wrote to the city in June 2019, he was incarcerated at Rikers from January to May of that year. In his letter, he proposed changes to the inmate policy regarding “sexually explicit material” and contact between inmates. “Not all physical contact is rape,” he wrote. “Not all physical contact results in rape.”

In November 2019, a judge dismissed Nguyen’s case because Rikers had failed to provide him with basic needs since he was no longer an inmate. (That same month, the con artist took a plea deal and was sentenced to prison.) New York Post reported)

Nguyen was furious. post that he would appeal the judge’s ruling and possibly file a class action lawsuit against the city.

He complained that during his detention he did not have the means to file a petition that would not be rejected.

“Underwear doesn’t make headlines,” Nguyen said. “The more we let them get away with the little things, the easier it is for them to get away with the bigger things.”