A civil lawsuit was filed in federal court on Thursday against a $60,000-a-year New York private school and a former teacher, Winston Nguyen, 39, who was arrested in June 2024 for sending nude photos of two young teenage girls in a “revenge porn blast” to his students on Snapchat.
The lawsuit filed by the two girls, who are not students at the school, accuses Nguyen of posing as a teenage boy online to solicit nude photos and videos from the girls when they were young teens and later sharing the material with his students. The school is also being accused of dismissing complaints against Nguyen by parents and others as “racist,” according to the lawsuit and multiple news reports.
Shockingly, Nguyen was hired at the school in 2020 despite having served time after pleading guilty to defrauding an elderly couple out of $300,000, for which he served “a four-month jail term a year before he was hired by Saint Ann’s.”
Nguyen “became famous” after appearing on the hit game show Jeopardy! in July 2014, “becoming a Jeopardy! champion and appearing on two episodes,” AM New York reported.
“According to prosecutors, Nguyen used the messaging app Snapchat to pose as a teenage boy and engage minors in sexually explicit conversations, persuading them to send nude images and videos. The victims were between 13 and 15 years old, and the crimes occurred between October 2022 and May 2024, the DA’s office said,” Fox News reported.
Nguyen pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge and multiple misdemeanors and is now serving a seven-year prison sentence, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Apart from his fake identity as a teenager online, as a teacher he reportedly exhibited signs of predatory grooming behavior by cozying up to students by giving them gifts and interacting with them on social media.
When parents, teachers, and students questioned his behavior as a teacher they were allegedly dismissed or “shamed” for being “racist or not progressive,” according to a 2024 law firm report commissioned by the school after Nguyen’s arrest.
Nguyen is the son of Vietnamese immigrants.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, names Nguyen, Saint Ann’s School, and several administrators as defendants.
Saint Ann’s is known for prepping students for Ivy League college acceptance. Attendees have included artists, celebrities, and Wall Street executives. The school has been rocked by the scandal for nearly two years.
The two girls, who were not students at Saint Ann’s but became caught up in Nguyen’s fraudulent social network online, allege school leaders were negligent and failed to act despite repeated warning signs about Nguyen’s behavior.
Nguyen was arrested in June 2024 outside the Brooklyn Heights campus after his two teenage victims disclosed their experiences to the police.
The lawsuit marks the first time some of Nguyen’s victims have publicly disclosed their experiences.
According to the New York Times, which obtained the complaint:
The lawsuit details how Mr. Nguyen impersonated a teenage boy online, gaining credibility by building a Snapchat network that included many Saint Ann’s students, as well as those from other private schools in Brooklyn.
Mr. Nguyen corresponded with the girls at all hours, including during school days when he would have been teaching at Saint Ann’s. He flattered them and told them that he was struggling through the difficult emotions brought on by his parents’ divorce.
The grooming eventually resulted in requests for nude photos and sex videos.
“The girls felt pressure to comply because they perceived Nguyen to be a peer in their social circles with significant social clout given his account’s large network of Saint Ann’s connections,” according to the lawsuit.
After the girls in the lawsuit cut of contact with Nguyen, he made good on his revenge porn threat by sharing their images with other students.
In early 2024, according to the lawsuit, Saint Ann’s leadership was twice told that images of young girls were being disseminated to the school’s students on Snapchat.
“Saint Ann’s met with its own affected students but took no other steps to help,” according to the complaint, and the school did not report the incidents to the police.
“Only the school knew about both the revenge porn circulating and Nguyen’s history of misconduct,” the complaint states.
Nguyen was first hired in 2020 as a clerk before later becoming a middle school math teacher. Saint Ann’s administrators knew when Nguyen was hired he had previously served time, according to the complaint.
In December 2024 at least one staff member warned against hiring Nguyen as a teacher, citing his criminal history, according to the Times.
School officials also allegedly knew Nguyen slept on campus, gave students gifts and snacks, and searched for students on social media, according to the 39-page report law-firm investigation commissioned by the school.
The girls’ attorney, Joshua Perry, alleged Saint Ann’s leadership repeatedly ignored red flags that popped up about Nguyen’s behavior.
“The school ignored every warning sign and coddled a known predator,” Perry told Fox.
Perry said the girls, identified in court filings only as Jane and Joan, were deeply traumatized.
“They were devastated. Depressed. Anxious. Terrified. Ashamed,” Perry told the outlet. “But they’re incredibly brave young women, and they’re fighting back.”
Statements from the girls were read at Nguyen’s sentencing hearing last year, according to the news outlet.
“Photos of me as a naked preteen will forever be on the internet,” one wrote. “You ruined my life, broke my ability to trust, and hurt any chance at loving myself.”
Frank Rothman, Nguyen’s defense attorney in the criminal case, told the New York Times that his client is indigent and incarcerated but acknowledged potential liability for the school.
“At a minimum, they should have stopped to think, ‘Is this the man for the job?’” Rothman told the Times.
It is not the first time the Brooklyn school, known for its experimental educational approach and artistic culture, has been involved in allegations of sexual misconduct.
In 2019, Saint Ann’s acknowledged that 19 former faculty and staff members may have potentially engaged in sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior over a span of three decades, including male teachers having sex with students.
As for the current complaint, Saint Ann’s sent out a letter to the school community, which stated, “The complaint includes several misrepresentations of Saint Ann’s role, and we will address and dispute this delicate matter through the appropriate legal channels.”
Perry said he hopes additional victims will come forward but accused Saint Ann’s of discouraging them.
“Saint Ann’s turned a predator loose on Brooklyn’s children,” he said. “They don’t get to hide in their ivory tower.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets, which documents one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
