New York Daily News

Drugs, threat to rape teen’s ma

- BY MEGAN CERULLO, THOMAS TRACY and LARRY McSHANE

THIS BRONX teacher had no class.

Charter school instructor Kevin Pope, outraged when a student robbed him of $4,000 in drug money, beat the teen senseless and threatened to have his mother raped, authoritie­s charged Saturday.

“You better get my money,” the teacher snapped at the battered 16-year-old after the Wednesday beatdown, according to court papers. “You know where I work.”

Pope, 48, repeatedly punched the boy in the face, knocking him backward into the glass window of a local business before the teen collapsed on the sidewalk, a criminal complaint charged.

“Do you want to die?” Pope allegedly shouted at the teen. “You want to steal from me? I should break your arm ... I should get someone to rape your mom every day after work.”

The victim needed three staples to close several deep wounds on the back of his head after the beating near the John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy in Hunts Point, according to the complaint.

The instructor’s attack on the teen was captured on surveillan­ce video, Assistant District Attorney Gerard Donahue said.

Pope (photo) was released without bail Saturday after a Bronx hearing where his lawyer bizarrely claimed the student had simply stolen the science teacher’s briefcase — which was filled with $5,000 in cash.

Bronx Judge Harold Adler took a skeptical view of defense attorney Japel Filiaci’s claim that Pope was robbed while riding a city bus with all that cash.

When Adler asked what Pope was doing with that much money on mass transit, Filiaci said she never asked.

“He took the money out, maybe to transfer it,” the lawyer replied.

The extracurri­cular drama began three months ago, when the teen told the teacher he had a drug connection in Manhattan, police sources said.

Pope agreed to pay $4,000 for roughly a pound of weed, only to have the student make off with the money, the sources said.

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