A New York City private school for special-needs children with brain disorders is allegedly so filthy that students’ wheelchairs are teeming with cockroaches, and is run by a scandal-ridden chiropractor masquerading as a “neurologist” who preys on female staffers.
The disturbing accusations are detailed in a lawsuit obtained by The Daily Beast, which was filed Monday by a one-time employee who in December quit her job at the International Institute for the Brain (iBRAIN) on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
In it, former iBRAIN publicity associate Katelyn Newman also claims, among other things, that the school hired at least one convicted felon who fraudulently posed for years as a doctor and fake U.S. Navy officer, subjects children to scientific experiments without proper consent, and lacks basic classroom necessities like pencils and chairs even as the state forks over up to $350,000 per student for tuition.
“This is major crime,” Newman’s attorney, Kenneth McCallion, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday, noting his client was “severely damaged by the entire experience,” and had to start seeing a therapist to recover.
A former prosecutor now litigating civil cases, McCallion—who has previously contributed a handful of opinion pieces to The Daily Beast—said he hopes to “pique the interest of the Attorney General and the Board of Ed” with the filing.
When Newman began working at iBRAIN in August 2022, the “first thing she noticed was that the facility located on East 91st Street was extremely filthy and unsanitary,” her lawsuit states. “The floors were generally left unwashed, spiders and bugs everywhere, with often no toilet paper, paper towels, soap, hand sanitizer, or running water in the bathroom.”
Cockroaches “were so prevalent that they were sometimes nested in students’ wheelchairs,” the filing goes on, noting that there was no working A/C at the height of the summer heat, and that plumbing leaks were routinely “stuffed up with Dorito bags or whatever else was readily available.”
“At one-point, some disgusting and gross-smelling residue started falling from the ceiling in [the] therapist’s office area, but there were no immediate instructions given to vacate the premises,” it continues. “The carcass of a rat could be seen for an extended time period before it was finally removed, and the ceiling over the entryway where the children entered the building was falling down.”
But that wasn’t the worst of it, according to Newman’s lawsuit. iBRAIN’s so-called chief innovations officer, Dr. Victor Pedro, who claims to have once treated 80s pop star Paula Abdul with an experimental method medical experts say is quackery, “held himself out as a neurologist or neuroscientist,” Newman claims. However, “he was a chiropractor from Rhode Island, not a neurologist or neuroscientist as he represented himself to be.” Pedro “called his ‘innovative therapy’ Cortical Integrated Therapy (‘CIT’), but he seemed to be the only practitioner of this controversial (and largely rejected) so-called therapy,” Newman alleges, noting that iBRAIN administrators participated in “neuro-conferences” as part of their work.
“Upon further digging, [Newman] found out that Dr. Pedro had graduated with a B.S. from the University of Vermont in 1981, moved on to Boston University to study dentistry, but ultimately became a chiropractor, graduating from the New York Chiropractic College in 1983,” the suit states, adding that Pedro’s chiropractic license expired in December 2021. In 2017, the suit continues, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) rejected CIT as having shown no “scientific evidence verifying the efficacy of CIT, nor any indication that CIT was subject to such evaluation.”
Newman alleges Pedro showed her a presentation deck of “brain power points… promoting various controversial techniques that had not been approved by the FDA or apparently any other governmental agency, and which basically, in [Newman’s] view, used children as human guinea pigs for his experiments.” Her lawsuit further accuses Pedro of sexual harassment, including making inappropriate comments about Newman’s appearance and clothing, and regularly crossing the line from “harmless flirtation” over to something far more sinister.
Pedro and iBRAIN officials did not immediately respond to emails and voicemails from The Daily Beast on Tuesday seeking comment.
iBRAIN administrators routinely forged paperwork and falsified reports about the progress students were making, and performed procedures—such as fixing children’s gastric feeding tubes—that they were not certified to do, according to Newman, who alleges one student “had to go to the hospital [from a poorly-executed gastric tube adjustment] because his circulation was impeded, and his legs swelled up.” Other kids showed up to the school nurse with “bruises, cuts, bloody noses, and other evidence of neglect abuse,” Newman’s suit claims.
Eventually, Newman says she “became concerned for her own safety and the children when she heard from other staff members and teachers at iBRAIN that there were ‘ex-cons’ working there who had not been properly vetted with background checks.” One of these employees was a “Dr. Alim Shariff,” who claimed to be a Harvard-educated behavioral psychologist and Naval Reserve officer, according to Newman. “Shariff,” whose real name is Rodney Robinson and is now facing federal prison over his alleged years-long ruse, was in meetings with upper management and worked with special-needs children “every day,” Newman states in her lawsuit, yet “was not challenged regarding his phony credentials or the so-called ‘clinical work’ he was engaged in, which, upon information and belief, turned out to be a complete fraud.”
It is unclear specifically when Robinson, who was arrested and charged in February 2021, worked at iBRAIN; his name is no longer listed on the school’s website. However, a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan federal court says Robinson “spent years” posing as Shariff, and “gained employment at multiple New York City area social service and rehabilitation providers” using fake identification documents.
The longer she was there, the more suspicious Newman became of iBRAIN, which has a second location in Brooklyn. The school, which was the first in the U.S. to reopen as the pandemic continued to rampage across the nation, received some $1.8 million in emergency COVID funds under the federal Paycheck Protection Program, but paychecks were starting to bounce. Some staffers were told to pick up their salaries in cash from the school founder’s doorman on Central Park West. Others were paid by the founder himself, a lawyer named Patrick Donohue, who allegedly cut personal checks to cover iBRAIN’s payroll. (Donohue did not respond to multiple emails or a voicemail message left on his cellphone Tuesday.)
During COVID outbreaks, faculty and staff were allegedly forbidden from wearing face masks, “even around immunocompromised children/teens,” which, according to Newman, contravened New York State’s public health orders at the time. And while New York State was perhaps iBrain’s biggest benefactor, providing “between $100,000 to $350,000 per student for tuition at iBRAIN, depending on the severity of the student’s disability,” Newman says in her suit that she still saw “a lack of basic materials necessary to effectively address student goals, such as educational toys, oral motor tools, sensory regulation objects, iPads, educational software, chairs, pencils, and other educational equipment.”
Last November, after being “constantly degraded and disrespected” by higher-ups, claiming she was subjected to verbal abuse and humiliation so severe she started seeing a therapist, Newman says she tried to quit. Her bosses promised they’d change their ways, and Newman gave it a shot. But the issues persisted, Newman claims, and on Dec. 13, she tendered her resignation.
After resigning but staying in touch with present and former employees, Newman’s suit says iBrain administrators sent letters to her parents, fiancée, and several business and professional contacts, “falsely alleging that she had violated ‘the New York State Child Abuse and Neglect statutes,’ and that she had spread ‘false, inaccurate and unfounded information that is damaging to iBRAIN….” This, according to Newman, was retaliation meant to “destroy her personal and professional reputation.”
In totality, McCallion told The Daily Beast, it amounted to nothing less than “psychological torture.”
Newman is seeking a jury trial and damages to be determined in court.
