CUNY professor in alleged drug-dealing, student-sex scandal at John Jay College will shockingly return to classroom

CUNY couldn’t drain this swamp. 

The John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor who was implicated in an alleged drug-dealing, student-sex scandal that rocked the taxpayer-financed City University of New York school shockingly will return to the classroom next year, The Post has learned. 

In 2019, John Jay president Karol Mason revealed by The Post — that the faculty members ran a den of depravity known as “The Swamp” at the school’s Midtown campus, where they used and sold drugs, and engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct involving students.  

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But in an 85-page decision, arbitrator James M. Darby found that despite Curtis’ “reckless and risky behavior,” the prof should continue to shape the minds of future crime-fighters at the college following a year-long, unpaid suspension and additional training on CUNY’s policies.

“CUNY – in no uncertain terms – was justified in taking this matter very seriously,” Darby wrote in the Aug. 5 decision. But “I cannot accept CUNY’s position that termination is the only appropriate penalty here.”

While rejecting some of the more serious claims, the arbitrator determined CUNY substantiated a number of the allegations against the academic, whose research, ironically, focused on drug use and distribution.

These included complaints that Curtis passed around glassines to students containing heroin residue and smoked pot in his office, which was littered with illicit drugs such as MDMA and synthetic marijuana, the arbitrator wrote.

Darby also agreed that Curtis spoke to a student using misogynistic and sexual language that was inappropriate, and did not comply with school policy regarding reporting complaints of alleged sexual harassment against other faculty that were brought to his attention.

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Curtis, however, was not “pimping out” his students when he allegedly suggested female students meet a professor the school was looking to hire as a department head, Darby wrote.

Curtis “more likely than not facetiously proposed having some female students meet with [the professor] – nothing more, nothing less,” he wrote.

Darby added the school likely had been aware of his marijuana use, possession of drug paraphernalia on campus and his foul language.

The school faculty union “makes a compelling argument that CUNY knew, or with a reasonable amount of investigation should have known, of much of [Curtis’] alleged misconduct,” he wrote. 

Mason said she was “disappointed by the outcome” but that the school would comply with the arbitrator’s decision under its collective bargaining agreement with the faculty union. 

“We will continue to prioritize providing a safe environment for our community members and we will continue to expect that CUNY policies are followed,” she wrote in an Aug. 15 letter to the school community.

David Gottlieb, a lawyer for a pair of former students, Naomi Haber and Claudia Cojocaru, who first alerted the school to the professors’ misconduct in May 2018, said it was “confounding” that Darby would allow Curtis to return to his post.

“We hope and expect that CUNY will take the necessary measures to ensure all students are provided a fully safe educational environment,” he said.

In 2018, The Post reported allegations by Haber and Cojocaru that Curtis, together with professors Barry Spunt and Anthony Marcus as well as adjunct professor Leonardo Dominguez, engaged in a slew of heinous drug- and sex-related misdeeds. 

Haber and Cojocaru filed a civil lawsuit against CUNY and the four academics in 2019 in Manhattan federal court, alleging the professors had created “a cesspool of sexism, misogyny, sexual harassment and illegal drug use,” and asserting claims for discrimination, retaliation, and violation of New York’s Gender Motivated Violence Act.

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Among the accusations in the suit were that Marcus allegedly raped Haber in a Washington, DC, hotel room while they were attending an academic conference there in 2015, and that Spunt and Curtis groped Cojocaru.

Haber also accused Curtis and Dominguez of groping her, and both women alleged Curtis sold illegal drugs on campus, according to legal papers. They also claimed all four professors used and “thrust” illicit narcotics, including pot, cocaine and heroin, onto students.

The school placed the professors on paid leave and according to a 2019 letter from Mason to the John Jay community. 

The letter did not disclose the nature of the misconduct, and did not state whether the investigation substantiated the specific sexual misconduct or drug allegations.

Then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance also launched a probe, but did not bring charges.

John Jay did not renew Dominguez’s contract and moved to fire the three professors, prompting years-long termination and arbitration processes — where the school continued to pay their six-figure salaries, including raises.

In legal papers, Marcus, Dominguez and Spunt denied the allegations of sexual and drug misconduct, and filed counterclaims against Cojocaru and Haber for defamation, alleging that the pair had made false allegations against them, including to the Post. 

In 2020, the judge largely denied the former students’ motion to dismiss the counterclaims. Spunt retired on December 1, 2020 and died two months later; Marcus retired on Dec. 31, 2021, according to school officials.  

Haber and Cojocaru settled their suit against the college and the other professors in 2021, with CUNY shelling out over $609,000.  According to the terms of the settlement, which the parties filed in court, the accused professors were not required to pay any money to Haber and Cojocaru.

Under the settlement, all of the claims in the ongoing case were dismissed except for Curtis’ counterclaims. The students amended their complaint to name only Curtis as a defendant, and narrowed their claims to assert only that Curtis’ counterclaims amounted to unlawful retaliation against them. Curtis also has sued CUNY for gender discrimination. Both of those cases are ongoing.

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Robert Herbst, Curtis’ lawyer, said that the arbitrator “properly found that CUNY’s five-year effort to terminate Dr. Curtis was unwarranted,” asserting that the school’s own investigation “exonerated” his client of all allegations of “sexual assault, forcible or unwanted touching, engaging in exploitative physical contact, consensual sex, [and] unwelcome sexual advances.”  The report of the school’s internal investigation is not publicly available, but those claims were not pressed by the school as grounds for termination in the arbitration decided last month.

“He looks forward to returning to the classroom to once again share his insights with students as one of John Jay College’s most accomplished scholars,” Herbst added.

Marcus and Dominguez, who also previously denied the allegations, could not be reached for comment.

John Jay spokeswoman Jan Benjamin declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.