Brooklyn college students fooled into sending nude pictures to an ex-”Jeopardy!” champ instructor have been “ruined” by the catfishing scheme, in accordance with sufferer statements learn at his sentencing on Wednesday.
Former non-public college math instructor and TV trivia whiz Winston Nguyen, 38, will spend the following seven years in jail as punishment for his crimes after statements have been learn from his ashamed victims who revealed how he preyed on their innocence and belief.
“You took benefit of me after I was at a psychological low,” one sufferer wrote in an impression assertion learn aloud to the courtroom. “You gave me the validation my younger, impressionable thoughts wanted. You used this to control me into sending you specific images of myself.”
Nguyen stood in courtroom through the continuing sporting a beige jail jumpsuit and a brand-new black eye — which his lawyer, Franklin Rothman, later stated was the product of a jail assault that compelled the disgraced trivia nerd into protecting custody.
“I knew in my head it was unsuitable, and I mustn’t have been doing it,” the sufferer assertion continued. “However it was the one love my appears had ever obtained, and I used to be afraid of shedding it.
“Now, each time I have a look at myself, I consider you,” she wrote. “I consider all of the inappropriate stuff you stated about my physique. You despatched these pictures to numerous folks … I have no idea who is aware of and I really feel like at any second, individuals are going to seek out out the woman who despatched nudes to the instructor was me.”
“The reality is, there’s by no means something you are able to do to repair this. You ruined my life, broke my skill to belief.”
Nguyen, who taught on the swanky Saint Ann’s College in Brooklyn Heights, landed in scorching water for posing as a teenage boy on Snapchat and participating in a whole lot of sexual chats with youngsters as younger as 13-years outdated.
Prosecutors stated Nguyen victimized a minimum of six youngsters who attended a cadre of 4 Brooklyn non-public faculties — together with Saint Ann’s.
The disturbing actions — which authorities stated occurred between October 2022 and Might 2024 — led to a 30-count indictment that compelled Nguyen to give up to the authorities final July.
“I deeply remorse my actions,” Nguyen stated through the listening to. “Particularly to a neighborhood that had gone out of its method to help me, giving me a second probability. As a instructor, my job was to guard college students, and as an alternative, I acted selfishly.
“I do know my phrases as we speak may be unsatisfying,” he stated, including that he would speak to “any households [who] wished to have any conversations for closure.”
“I really need them to know that I’m sorry.”
His apology rang hole to a different unidentified sufferer whose assertion was additionally learn in courtroom — with the individual writing that Nguyen “begged for sexually specific pictures of me to the purpose the place I felt trapped.”
“As a younger youngster, with little or no expertise with any boys, I didn’t know what to do,” the sufferer wrote, including Nguyen “wouldn’t take no for a solution.”
“I used to be naive and insecure, you used my adolescence to control me,” the sufferer stated. “After I came upon, I used to be horrified. You had saved and saved 80 photos of me and despatched them to different youngsters. I used to be taken benefit of, uncovered and humiliated by you.
“You’ve accomplished excess of make dangerous choices — [you] deeply damage my pals and my household, and your actions will scar me for the remainder of my life.”
Brooklyn District Lawyer Eric Gonzalez referred to as Nguyen’s actions a “sickening betrayal of belief by a schoolteacher.”
“At the moment’s sentencing holds him accountable for his actions whereas sparing the younger and weak victims from having to relive this emotional abuse in courtroom,” Gonzalez stated in a press release.
“I commend the prosecutors and investigators who introduced this defendant to justice, and the younger survivors who bravely stepped ahead.”
Nguyen — who pleaded responsible earlier this month to 1 rely of use of a kid in a sexual efficiency as a sexually motivated felony and 5 counts of endangering the welfare of a kid — may also register as a intercourse offender and serve 10 years of supervised launch.
He additionally has an eye-popping rap sheet that included stealing greater than $300,000 from an aged couple who employed him as a house well being aide — an act that landed him in jail for 4 months in 2019.
