John Kennedy, 53, was arrested at his St. James home Thursday evening for allegedly stalking a former student he had previously been accused of raping.
The former Bay Shore High School art teacher was taken into custody after the 18-year-old woman called 911 Thursday morning, reporting that she had spotted him following her after she left her Bay Shore residence and traveled to an undisclosed location in Selden, according to Suffolk County Police.
“Suffolk County Police today arrested a high school teacher for stalking a former student that he had sexual affairs with previously,” a spokesperson for the police department said.
The arrest comes barely a week after the unnamed accuser filed a lawsuit against the Bay Shore school district, accusing administrators of failing to protect her from what court papers describe as a “serial sexual predator” who routinely raped her inside his own classroom. The lawsuit alleges the district had an obligation to shield the former student from being sexually groomed by Kennedy and ignored warning signs along the way.
Kennedy had already been exposed in October for having sex with the then-17-year-old student, a senior enrolled in his art class, after he was placed on administrative leave over the affair. Many former and current students had once described him as their “favorite” teacher.
The girl was of the legal age of consent in New York at the time of the alleged abuse, and a Suffolk County police probe was initially closed after finding no evidence of criminal conduct.
But her lawyer, Andrew Silvershein, claimed Kennedy occupied a position of power as a teacher that made the relationship inherently exploitative, regardless of the age of consent.
Bay Shore Superintendent Steven Maloney has maintained that the district acted swiftly once it learned of the allegations and immediately placed Kennedy on administrative leave, barred him from campus, and alerted Suffolk police.
The scandal marks the third high-profile incident involving possible sexual misconduct by Bay Shore teachers. In November 2024, the district was ordered to pay $25 million in damages tied to retired third-grade teacher Thomas Bernagozzi, who was accused of sexually abusing students for more than three decades. A Suffolk County jury found the district ignored repeated warning signs about the child predator, whose abuse spanned the 1970s through the early 2000s, and over 50 former students have since come forward. Marcus Johnson, a teacher’s assistant at the high school, was also charged with raping a 15-year-old student in 2017.
Kennedy was fired following the initial revelations, and no working phone number could be found for him.