Project Veritas

Hidden Cam: More New York Union Officials Caught on Camera Covering up Child Abuse

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  • “Well if they never come forward then he doesn’t have anything to worry about.” — Robert Levine, UFT Representative

  • “If the kid says something whatever just keep it secret, I don’t know.” — Eliu Lara, UFT Bronx High School District Representative

  • “I’ll tell you right now if it’s any of the principals that I can think if I would strongly suggest she just keep her mouth shut, learn her lesson and never do anything like that again.” — Kerry Broderick, White Plains Teacher Association President

The third video of the undercover union series shows a continuation of teachers unions and their willingness to cover up child abuse in the workplace.

In the first video, union officials in Yonkers advised Project Veritas journalists on how to cover up child abuse and excessive absenteeism through an elaborate scenario which involved being kidnapped by drug cartel leaders. In the second video, Project Veritas exposed a hypocritical New Jersey middle school health teacher who offered undercover journalists cocaine, and his local union representative who said he wouldn’t report a drug abusing teacher. In this third video, other United Federation of Teachers (UFT) representatives across New York echo the same unethical sentiments of the Yonkers and New Jersey officials who were caught on camera.

In James O’Keefe’s video, three interactions with three separate union officials are documented, all of whom encouraged the journalist to cover-up or hide the fact that the teacher hit a child.

PV Journalist: “What if the kid never comes forward?”

 Robert Levine, UFT Representative: “Well, if they never come forward then he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

Kerry Broderick, White Plains Teacher Association President: “If it’s been over a month and there’s been no conversation with the building level principal then I would let it go.”

Eliu Lara, UFT Bronx High School District Representative: “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it.”

As one can see in the video, each time Project Veritas visited a different union representative about the hypothetical situation which involved hitting a child, PV journalists were advised to not worry about it and to keep their mouth shut about what happened. Robert Levine, a UFT representative in Brooklyn told the PV journalist that a tenured teacher will be protected by the union, even if the teacher hit a student.

PV Journalist: “He hit a kid and nobody was around it was just him and the kid in the classroom.”

PV Journalist: “And he’s worried that if anybody finds out he’ll lose his job.”

Robert Levine, UFT Representative: “Well that is very very serious. You know we don’t report that, okay. That’s not my job to report anything like that.”

PV Journalist: “So if he came to you and told you he won’t get in trouble?”

Robert Levine, UFT Representative: “He won’t get in trouble from me. I won’t report that to anybody outside. I do just the opposite. I’m here to protect teachers.”

Like the union officials in Yonkers, Levine further demonstrated and admitted that the union prioritizes protecting teachers over children, even in cases of abuse. Because the union officials are not reporting the malfeasance some teachers admit to them, many teachers could potentially be getting away with child abuse, courtesy of union officials.

As long as nobody rats out the teacher, the teacher has nothing to worry about.  Kerry Broderick from White Plains New York said just about the same thing.

“I’ll tell you right now if it’s any of the principals that I can think if I would strongly suggest she just keep her mouth shut, learn her lesson and never do anything like that again,” said Broderick.

In the Bronx, we also found union officials who advised our journalist to stay quiet about the abuse. “So leave it like that. And pray that maybe he’ll never come forward… If the kid says something whatever just keep it secret, I don’t know,” said Eliu Lara, the UFT Bronx High School District Representative.

“We understand that it is the job of union officials to protect their members. But, we have to ask, why are we more concerned about the well-being of teachers over the well-being of our children? This series will continue to expose more corruption and abuse within teachers unions across the country, and you will continue to hear stories that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up,” said Project Veritas President James O’Keefe.

About Project Veritas

Project Veritas is a non-profit investigative news organization conducting undercover reporting. Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society. Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)(3) organization.