Khemwatie Bedessie, 38, a Guyanese immigrant and former 125th Street resident, worked for four years as a teacher’s aide at Veda’s Learning Center, a private day care center located on 128th Street that has since closed. The incidents, involving a boy at the learning center, occurred between Jan. 4, 2006 and n Feb 11, 2006.
Bedessie separated the child from the other children during the early morning hours and at nap time at the day care center and took him into a bathroom where she engaged in intercourse with him.
District Attorney Richard Brown referred to Bedessie’s actions as a “disturbing betrayal of trust.” He added: “Hopefully, the terrible experience that the child suffered at the hands of the defendant will not have any long-reaching effects or leave him emotionally scarred for life.”
Bedessie was found guilty of one count of first-degree rape, six counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of endangering the welfare of a child. The guilty verdict came back after jurors reviewed a videotaped confession Bedessie made hours after her arrest March 2006. She recounted, in detail, the sequence of events that led her to having sexual intercourse with her victim.
But Bedessie said on the witness stand last week that she only confessed because detectives promised to release her if she told them what they wanted to hear. The alternative, she said she was told, was terrible treatment on Rikers Island.
Her attorney, Stephen Turano, argued that because Bedessie’s interrogations before and after the confession were not recorded, the account presented to jurors was incomplete. But Judge Michael Aloise refused to allow testimony by a false confession expert witness.
Turano said after the reading of the verdict on Tuesday that he plans to file an appeal.
Aloise set a July 25 sentencing date. Bedessie, who is being held on $100,000 bail, faces up to 25 years in prison.
