Law&Crime Sidebar - High School Music Teacher Groomed Student to Be His Lover: Report

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

A new investigative report says former New York City high school music teacher Scott Biski, 50, groomed a student for years. The former student is now suing Biski. Law&Crime’s Elizabeth Millner spoke about the allegations against Biski with Anna Sonoda, a licensed clinical social worker who wrote the book “Duck, Duck, Groom: Understanding How a Child Becomes a Target.”HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. New details are unfolding about a former New York City music teacher and his legal battle against the accusations that he groomed one of his students for years. And when he apparently got caught. He sued the city for refusing to back him up in court. We got our hands on the disturbing official report about his alleged conduct that targeted high schoolers. Welcome to Sidebar presented by Law and Crime. I'm Elizabeth Milner in for Jesse Weber. Hey, so before we jump into this story, I have a very exciting announcement. The video version of

Sidebar is now available on Spotify. We're so thankful for your support of Sidebar and us getting the show on Spotify video truly is a testament to how loyal every single one of you are. So thank you. And yes, you can watch and listen now on the go. From Diddy to the United Health Care CEO murder case updates to crazy courtroom moments, it's all now on Spotify. So right now, you can scan the QR code on your screen or click the link in the description to follow Sidebar on Spotify. Fifty-year-old Scott Biskke is fighting to clear his name after allegations surfaced that he sexually abused a student, both while she attended Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences High School and for the years to follow. As Biskey is embroiled in at least two civil

lawsuits, one in which he's the plaintiff and one where he's the defendant, we're getting a look at some of the accusations against him from that unidentified former student. In July of 2023, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District sent a report to the then-Chancellor of public schools, letting him know the results of their investigation into Biskey. Claims of sexual misconduct came in June of 2022, after someone within the school district met with the girl identified only as former student A and learned about Biskie's alleged crimes. When the allegations came to light, Bisckey resigned from Gateway, but records reviewed by the New York Post show he was still on the city's payroll

until sometime in 2024, reportedly collecting nearly $100,000 in the fiscal year of 2024. According to the investigation report, former student A alleged that during that time that she was a student at Gateway, Biskie committed inappropriate touching, rape and grooming, and as such, should not be allowed to teach. So here's what we know. In June of 2022, former student A met with a member of the school district to catch up and talk about work as a teacher. When she met with this person who is referred to in some court documents as Mr. French, he asked if the student missed Gateway. She reportedly said she did not miss Bisckey and his quote, predatory behaviors. Mr. French made an online report to the special commissioner

of investigation also called SCI. alleged misconduct was also reported to the NYPD special victims unit. According to the report, former student A disclosed to Mr. French that she had a normal student teacher relationship with Biskie, who was a music teacher for most of her time in high school, but that changed when she turned 17. She said she now understood his actions as being inappropriate and likely part of the grooming process to convince her that his actions were normal. From the report, former student A then disclosed an incident after a parent teacher conference when she was cleaning up, and Biskie thanked her and hugged her,

which made her uncomfortable. Former student A continued that Biskie had created an escape room in the music classroom and said that there was an occasion where he touched her breast and tried to kiss her, and she promptly left the room. They stated that former student A also recalled a time when she, along with other members

of the board game club, were invited to Biskie's home to play games. However, she was the only student there. Now get this. Several of the creepiest details even involved the superhero Batman. Biskie reportedly called his home the Batcave and former student A confided in Mr. French that she had Bisckey's contact on her phone saved as Arthur Dent. Now Mr. French told investigators he believed the name was actually intended to be Harvey Dent,

a character from the Batman series. SCI investigators did an interview with former student A to get more details about her relationship with Biskie. She told them that she was in Bisckey's music class when she was in the 10th grade and the two became close with her telling him about personal problems she was having in her life. The report reads former student A said that when she was in the 11th grade, Biskie was not her teacher. However, she played the flute and was a member of the band club. Former student A recalled several occasions when she was in Bisckey's office, and he touched her shoulders and the top of her back. Former student A told investigators that when she spoke to Bisckey about her personal issues, he often hugged her. Former student A

described the hug as a romantic hug rather than a comforting one. Former student A said that there were occasions that she wanted to hang out with her friends, and Biskey texted her to come to his office, and if she failed to do so, he became angry. Former student A further recalled an instance when she mentioned a male student in her class, and Biskey became upset. She told investigators that when she was a senior, Biskey locked his classroom door while the two were alone and groped her. She also alleges that he forced her to touch his penis through his pants. The report says on another occasion when she was alone with Biskey, he attempted to kiss former student A, but she pulled away. There was a time, however, when Biskey kissed former student A on the lips. Former student A told

investigators that she was upset that her first kiss was with an older man, and she felt disgusted because she had looked at Biskey as a father figure. When she went to college, former student A stayed in contact with Bisky. She told investigators that she didn't have a relationship with her biological father and invited Bisky to come to things like swim meets and law to pay. to support her. The former student told investigators that Biskie would invite her to his house when his wife and two children were gone to quote, hang out. On one of those occasions, he pushed her head toward his penis and had her perform oral sex on him. After that, she would go to his home regularly and perform oral sex on him.

Former student A says the so-called relationship continued until she was 23 years old and was able to break off contact. The NYPD investigated former student A's claims and determined that all the sex. acts occurred after former student A had turned 17. Since she had considered those acts to be consensual at the time, the case was closed. But the NYPD did turn over their reporting to the commission to aid in its investigation. Biskie has never been charged criminally. Former student A told investigators that because of her relationship with Biskie, she was given special privileges at school, saying, quote, Biskey assigned me as first flute, offered me the piccolo, so I got multiple solos during songs, gave me a hundred in class, wrote outstanding recommendation, for college for me because at the time those things mattered a lot to me to stand out in college applications. These were things he did as part of his grooming process as a role as a teacher. He gave me a lot of gifts on the side that were of value to him. Among these gifts was that flute that I used and it was clear that the instruments were only meant to be lent out to students, and I was the only student he let keep their instrument. These instruments were school property. Other gifts

include his favorite childhood book he wanted me to have, plush toys, a new backpack, jackets, cash money for rides to and from his house because he did not want a paper trail. He also gave me $200 to buy a pair of Ugg boots that I really wanted. According to former student A, she still had the flute and the Ugg boots even after all these years later. According to investigators, Bisckey and the student texted back and forth with his name disguised as Arthur Dent. They reportedly sent more than 1,300 messages during that time that she was a student at Gateway. Even five years after she graduated, former student A was still getting. messages from Biskey. And one, he reportedly said, doesn't mean nothing I have touched no one else

but you for three years. And another, he allegedly wrote, I have risked everything for you, my job, my home, my kids, everything. According to the SCI report, Biskey declined to speak with investigators. And as part of its conclusion, the commission writes, quote, his behavior was not only unprofessional and improper, but egregious, manipulative, and predatory. Moreover, BISCII knew he was engaging in misconduct and understood the risk to his family and job. It is clear that BISCII has no place working in school and around young adolescents. Therefore, it is the recommendation of this office that the DOE terminates Bisckey's employment and that the problem code currently associated with his personnel file remain in place

and that this matter be considered should he seek future employment with the DOE or any of its vendors. The commission also recommended that the Department of Education amend its guidelines to prohibit educators from communicating with students using personal cell phone numbers. A few months after the report was released by SCI, former student A filed a civil lawsuit against the city of New York's Department of Education, the school, and Scott Biskke, under the New York's Child Victim Acts and New York Adult Survivors Act. The suit lays out many of the same allegations as the SCI report, but does give us some new insight.

For example, the suit says Biskie's classroom was located on the fourth floor, the top floor of the school and was only accessible by two staircases. The classroom was more secluded than others and far away from administrative offices on the first floor. But the lawsuit does allege that other adults at the school knew something was up. It says Biskey's inappropriate relationship with female students, including plaintiff, was known to the staff and administration of Jamaica Gateway. There were numerous instances where Biskey was directly observed to be inappropriately acting with female students and in particular plaintiff. Teachers and other staff, staff members knew that Biskey would regularly spend time with plaintiff and other teenage girls alone in his office and that he would organize social events with plaintiff and other female students outside of school, including on weekends.

Bisky exhibited this behavior continually finding ways to be alone with plaintiff and other girls after school between classes during free periods and at other times when there would be no reason for him to be alone with a student in order to spend an inordinate and inappropriate amount of time with plaintiff and other times. teenage girls. Former student A identified as Jane Doe says she was referred to as Bisckey's girlfriend even by adults. He even reportedly attended her prom as a chaperone but acted as though he were her date. The lawsuit alleges that officials at Gateway knew something was going on but didn't take the action they needed to keep the students safe. After the student sued Biskie, he filled out a form requesting legal representation from the city. He also sent a letter stating the allegations contained in the complaint result from actions occurring while I was acting within the scope of my employment and in the discharge of my duties.

As such, under education law and general municipal law, I am entitled to representation and indemnification for the allegations contained in the above caption matter lawsuit. But that request was never fulfilled. So Biskey got a letter from the former student's attorneys, letting him know he needed to find someone to represent him and fast. The city of New York's law department told Biskey in February of 2024 that it would not be representing him because while the allegations involve his time as a teacher, he also allegedly was breaking school rules and regulations. They suggested he find a private or union attorney. In July of 2024, Biskke filed a lawsuit against the city of New York for denying him

representation. According to court documents, Biskke finally found an attorney to defend him in the civil action in November of 2024. So much to break down with this lawsuit and case overall. So I'm joined now by Anna Sonoda, who is a licensed clinical social worker and the author of DuckDuck Groom, understanding how a child becomes a target. Anna, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. I want to first get your reaction to this case overall. It seems like the alleged grooming first started in high school and began with things like special privileges and attention. Then it even kept continuing even after the girl had graduated from that high school.

And then the alleged sex acts took place. What are your thoughts about this overall? Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for having me on. This is such an important subject, and it really impacts all of us. So when I think about this case with Scott Biscay, what I think about is just how fervent environments are for predation. And we must look at schools as one of those environments where predation and grooming can take place. And what we notice in this case especially is just how selective and incremental and observable grooming is. And that's one of the things we often miss when we think about cases of child sexual abuse is, oh, it came out of nowhere.

It sort of struck like lightning. But instead, what I want people listening to think about is it is so intentional and it is selective. And this teacher went out of his way to identify vulnerable young ladies. and then acted with the access in available spaces he had at school to continue to incrementally move towards more and more heinous acts with these young women. And I know we've identified the one individual victim. However, I think as this case gets further and further along, we'll see that there may be more who come out. Yeah, and just reading through the details in this particular case, you know, it was the teen. She had said that this was her first kiss and it happened

with a teacher. Then on top of that, you know, she said that it felt like she knew something wasn't right even from the beginning. And speaking with others who may have experienced this when they were a child, what are they saying to you in terms of how they were feeling going through something like this from someone who was supposed to be that trusted figure in their life? Well, that's an excellent point. You know, the individuals over 90% of the time are known and trusted to the victims. These survivors have confusion and, There's a lot of gray area about, did you really care about me? Did you love me?

Because they feel all of those feelings towards the individual oftentimes. Because these relationships have been established over potentially days, weeks, months, even years. And as this case indicates, we have an example of somebody who's very patient and is willing to work through all of the interruptions and potential setbacks in his. perverse courtship in grooming her, that he was willing to take that time and develop a relationship with her that baited her with things like gifts and money and attention. You know, it's very easy to impress adolescent females. And in this case, she was vulnerable. She was opening her heart about problems she was having at home and some challenges she was having with an absent father figure in the home. And when she looks at his involvement in her life, she thinks, this is somebody who's going to care about me, somebody who's going to mentor me, somebody who might even act as a father figure.

And that in many ways is a setup for increasing the likelihood of something like grooming because these predators go out of their way to be selective. Who's going to be a good target here? who's going to have maybe some higher fences around them or attentive parents or an intact home life or lower stress levels, those might not be very good targets. But individuals who have vulnerabilities in their home lives or in their financial situations or just the framework of the home that they live in altogether might actually be vulnerabilities that we don't often think about or speak about as a culture. but this is highlighted here in this case. Yeah, and just, you know, I've obviously been to high school before, and I've had, like, contacts with my teachers, even after high school, but never like this. And I just want to kind of stress that.

But what do you think of the overall contact even after this student graduated from high school where, you know, he was attending those swim meets and debates to support this student. But after she had invited him, I know you had mentioned before, you know, that vulnerability where she had even mentioned to investigators, you know, she did have an absent father and maybe he was kind of fulfilling that role by being a supportive figure, but what do you make of just that gray line that was clearly crossed by, you know,

continuing this type of behavior, even though she had graduated from school afterwards? Well, I think that it highlights something that we all need to be aware of, that during adolescence and early adulthood, we're all trying on relationships. We're trying on hopefully, because the goal is to mature

and potentially find partnerships that are healthy and balanced. And what I like to educate people on is the idea that relationships after the age of consent should be between two consenting equals. And in this case, there's no way for that to be the case when this man is in his 40s. He's had the role of being her teacher. This is extremely imbalanced from the get-go. And unfortunately, she was developing a contact with him and wanted to continue that relationship, but he was exploiting her vulnerability and her innocence and in many ways her inexperience with relationships to achieve his own goals, even when he was married and was raising a family of his own. These are some factors that are often present

when dealing with predators. They have all of the outward appearances of stability and trustworthiness, And oftentimes people fall for that as a reason for them to be acceptable or behave appropriately. And those are not often the case. Oftentimes we see these individuals who use that as a way to convince people that they are to be trusted and then exploit it as this individual has with the identified victim. And we have yet to hear about the other individuals who may come forward. He went out of his way to schedule opportunities for these young women to be off campus, meeting these individuals off campus, bringing them to his home. So one of the hallmarks of predation is isolation.

Isolation from your peers and isolation from caregivers and other individuals who would see that as an outlier. You know, predators might be everywhere, but they're not everyone. And so those predators, their behavior will set them apart. And this case is another example of that. And obviously, you know, a big thing in this story, too, was that the NYPD investigated these claims and that teacher was never criminally charged, given that she was 17 at the time

and considered and she considered these acts to be consensual. But are you surprised Biskey wasn't criminally charged in this case? I think it shows the fact that we cannot rely solely on the criminal justice system for protection and prevention in these cases. One of the things I noticed when I was reading through the indictments is this idea that he gave out his cell phone number, that these individuals were contacting, he was contacting his victim offline, you know, during non-school days, during non-school hours. These are red flags that parents listening today can keep an eye out for because grooming is incremental. It is a gradual process that does stand out when you know what to look for, and this case, albeit that the criminal justice system didn't act appropriately, we had a lot of red flags along the way.

I read about the other students in the classroom who went to their parent and said, this is happening in the classroom, these names, these labels, you know, whore and slut are being used with in reference to a student, and the mother made a report to the principal. Well, what happened with that report? Where was the follow-up and the action? Even back then, why are we now waiting until the 2020s for getting this individual out of the classroom? And that is something that is an oversight and can be mitigated when individuals understand the power that they possess in reporting. That reporting is always, always our first approach and that change can come when individuals report. even if they need to go higher and higher up the chain and supersede maybe a supervisor or a principal in order to get to answers. Yeah. And now that we know, you know, the former student is also

suing the New York City Department of Education, the school that she attended and the teacher himself. What do you make of that, especially as she alleges that the school did know about this inappropriate behavior? I would say that the majority of the time, many individuals are complacent, whether or not they are fearful of consequences to themselves personally, professionally. These cases are often an open secret. So other students knew about something happening, and I would bet that other teachers saw a pattern of behavior of Biskie going out of his way to isolate young females. You know, we're not hearing about young males being involved in this case. Predators typically have a type. He was in an environment

that was rich with his ideal type of prey. And we have to be really cognizant of the fact that in 2025, we now have a legal system that supports survivors. And I commend her courage for following through with the legal system in order to get justice, if nothing else, to prevent this individual from being in environments with young adolescent females going forward. Yeah, and then we have that flip side of Biskie, you know,

he's suing the city, not for like defamation or anything like that, but for denying him representation in that civil lawsuit. What do you make of Biskey's lawsuit against the city? I think it will come out that it's pretty unfounded. I mean, he has a right to defend himself, of course. However, when you've got text messages, you have a record that is littered with incriminating acts against adolescent girls. it doesn't look very good for for his for his culpability moving forward. Well, Anna Sonoda, I want to thank you so much for your time today and your insight into this case. Before we sign you off, though, where do you think all of this case goes from from here?

Well, I think we will see that she will have great success in her independent lawsuits. And we will also see that the school district in New York will act on behalf of all the current school, students and professionals. You know, one of the things that we often lose in this conversation is the idea that we need teachers and classrooms. We need professionals who are caring and appropriate and respectful to be in the classroom. So we need to make sure that we have policies in place

in the New York school systems and every other school system that protects the reputation of adults and that prepares teachers to recognize grooming as well, because I would bet that there are other individuals who worked during the time with Biskey who noticed that something was off, who noticed that something was awry, and didn't know either where to report it

or how to report it without having some sort of negative consequence personally. And we can do a much better job here in 2025 moving forward to make sure that schools are safer for children and take away the opportunities for grooming within school systems. Right, Anna Sonoda, I want to thank you again so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Well, that does it for this episode of Sidebar. If you want to listen to more of us, be sure to subscribe to us anywhere you listen to your podcast, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

I'm Elizabeth Milner in for Jesse Weber, and this has been Sidebar presented by Law and Crime. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.