A Taxpayer-Funded College That Trains Cops and Lawyers Put a Professor Tied to a Campus Sex-and-Drug Scandal Back in the Classroom.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice is the public university that New York City relies on to train its future police officers, prosecutors, and forensic scientists. It is part of the City University of New York — a system funded by New York taxpayers and the State of New York. And as the New York Post and others have reported, it spent years on a scandal that reads like the kind of case its own graduates are supposed to prosecute.
In 2018, two women — former student Naomi Haber and former student and adjunct Claudia Cojocaru — filed Title IX complaints alleging that four professors in the anthropology and sociology departments ran a suite of campus offices they nicknamed “the Swamp,” where, according to a 2019 federal lawsuit, the men used illegal drugs, pushed those drugs on students, and preyed on young women. The allegations included drug dealing on campus, sexual assault and rape, and, per multiple outlets, attempts to compel women into prostitution.
Two things keep this story pointed rather than lurid. First: these were allegations and civil claims, not criminal convictions — the professors are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and the Manhattan District Attorney never brought charges. Second: even on those terms, the institution’s own response is the accountability story. CUNY paid the two women roughly $609,998 to settle, the accused professors paid nothing, and in 2025 an arbitrator ordered the alleged ringleader reinstated to teach the next generation of crime-fighters.
- 4 professors — named in the 2019 lawsuit and placed on leave after Title IX complaints — Ric Curtis, Anthony Marcus, Barry Spunt, and adjunct Leonardo Dominguez · Source: NBC New York; Gothamist
- $609,998 — CUNY's reported settlement to the two plaintiffs — about $164,499 to each woman plus roughly $281,000 in legal fees; the accused professors paid nothing under the terms · Source: New York Post / Yahoo; Daily Beast
- 1-year suspension — the penalty an arbitrator imposed on the alleged ringleader instead of the termination CUNY sought — an unpaid suspension plus policy training, then reinstatement · Source: New York Post / Yahoo
- Fall 2025 — when Curtis returned to teach an in-person John Jay course, ANT 100: The Ethnography of Youth and Justice in New York City, per the published schedule · Source: The John Jay Sentinel
- 300+ signatures — on a student petition opposing the return; the college president said she was 'disappointed by the outcome' but would comply with the arbitration ruling · Source: Change.org; New York Post / Yahoo
The 2019 federal complaint, brought by Cojocaru and Haber, alleged that four faculty members “used their positions of trust” to “prey upon female students’ vulnerabilities and manipulate them to satiate their own sexual desires” between 2014 and 2018. The men, the suit alleged, gathered in a set of offices in the Annex Building they called “the Swamp,” used illegal drugs there, and “thrust these substances upon students” to lower their defenses. Two of the professors had built academic careers studying drug use and the sex trade — the very subjects at the center of the complaints. These are civil allegations; no professor was criminally convicted.
Ric Curtis — longtime anthropology professor and former department chair, named in reporting as the alleged ringleader; accused of selling and pushing drugs on students and of sexually assaulting Cojocaru in 2015. He is the professor who returned to teaching in 2025.
Anthony Marcus — former anthropology department chair; accused of raping Haber at a 2015 academic conference in Washington. He retired at the end of 2021.
Barry Spunt — sociology professor and former department chair; accused of inappropriate touching and of boasting about sex with students. He retired in December 2020 and died two months later.
Leonardo Dominguez — then-adjunct professor; accused of groping Haber without consent. His contract was not renewed.
All four denied wrongdoing; the claims were resolved by settlement, not by any criminal finding of guilt.
The reason this case lands harder than a generic campus scandal is the address. John Jay is not a liberal-arts college that happens to have an incident — it is the flagship criminal-justice school of the CUNY system, founded specifically to educate the people who staff the NYPD, the district attorneys’ offices, the courts, and the forensic labs of New York. The students sitting in those classrooms are the future of the very institutions that are supposed to investigate exactly the kind of conduct the lawsuit described.
CUNY is a public system. Its operating budget draws on New York State appropriations and New York City tax dollars, with tuition layered on top. That is what makes the institutional response a matter of public accountability rather than a private personnel dispute: the investigation, the settlement check, and the arbitration that put a professor back in front of students were all underwritten, in part, by taxpayers.
After the May 2018 Title IX complaints, John Jay placed all four professors on leave, and the matter drew in the New York State Inspector General and the Manhattan District Attorney. President Karol V. Mason said the school launched an investigation “upon receiving complaints alleging inappropriate conduct by certain faculty members.” But the plaintiffs’ attorney, David Gottlieb, argued the college’s own probe showed “demonstrable bias by the investigators,” discouraged the women from seeking legal counsel, and dragged on for more than a year.
“I never imagined that an institution whose mission is centered on justice would handle my complaints of sexual misconduct so poorly.”
Claudia Cojocaru — plaintiff and former John Jay adjunct, per The Daily Beast
The criminal track went nowhere: the Manhattan DA never brought charges against any of the four. The civil track ended in a settlement. According to the New York Post’s reporting, CUNY paid the two women a combined sum of roughly $609,998 — about $164,499 to each plaintiff plus around $281,000 in legal fees — while the accused professors, per the terms, paid nothing toward it.
CUNY found that Curtis and his colleagues had engaged in “unprofessional conduct” in violation of school policy and moved to fire him. Under the faculty union’s contract, that decision went to binding arbitration — and the arbitrator, James M. Darby, rejected termination. Despite what the ruling itself described as Curtis’s “reckless and risky behavior,” Darby ordered him reinstated after a one-year unpaid suspension and additional training on CUNY’s policies. The penalty CUNY sought — permanent removal — was overruled.
By the published Fall 2025 schedule, Curtis was teaching an in-person section of ANT 100: The Ethnography of Youth and Justice in New York City, meeting Mondays and Wednesdays. A student petition opposing the return gathered more than 300 signatures. President Mason said she was “disappointed by the outcome” but would comply with the arbitration decision — the institution’s position being that its hands were tied by the contract and the ruling.
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CUNY is governed by a Board of Trustees whose members are appointed by the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City — offices held throughout this saga by Democrats, from Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in Albany to Mayors Bill de Blasio (D) and Eric Adams (D) in City Hall. The point is not that any one official engineered this outcome — the arbitration was driven by the faculty contract. The point is that a public system, accountable to elected leaders and funded by the public, ended a documented misconduct case by writing a six-figure check and returning the accused to the classroom.
The consequence axis is straightforward. The settlement was public money. The vetting that left these professors in place for years was a public-institution failure. And the students paying tuition to train as cops, prosecutors, and forensic analysts were the ones asked to take a seat in a course taught by a professor their own school had tried, and failed, to fire.
A John Jay College professor accused in the 'Swamp' sex-and-drug scandal is back in the classroom after an arbitrator overruled CUNY's move to fire him — at the taxpayer-funded college that trains New York's future cops and prosecutors.
Strip away the headline’s heat and the documented record still indicts the institution. Four professors faced serious Title IX and civil allegations. No one was criminally convicted, and all are entitled to the presumption of innocence. But CUNY itself concluded there was unprofessional conduct, paid roughly $609,998 to make the lawsuit go away, and then watched an arbitrator put the alleged ringleader back in front of students at the very college built to train New York’s justice system. For a public school whose entire purpose is accountability, that is the story — not the gossip, but the bill and the revolving door, both of which the taxpayer paid for.
- 1.New York Post / Yahoo (syndicated) — 'CUNY professor in alleged drug-dealing, student-sex scandal at John Jay College will shockingly return to classroom'
- 2.The Daily Beast — 'CUNY Professor Tied to Sex and Drug Scandal Returning to Teaching'
- 3.The Daily Beast — 'John Jay College: Ex-Students' Lawsuit Claims Professors Had a Swamp of Sexual Harassment for Undergrads'
- 4.PIX11 (WPIX, New York) — 'Rape, drug sales, prostitution allegations against faculty at John Jay College shock students and staff'
- 5.NBC New York — 'Ex-Students File Lawsuit, Allege John Jay Professors Created Cesspool of Sexism and Illegal Drug Use'
- 6.amNewYork — 'John Jay professors fostered cesspool of sex misconduct, drug use, lawsuit says'
- 7.Campus Safety Magazine — 'John Jay Professors Accused of Selling Drugs, Rape and Prostituting Students'
- 8.Gothamist — 'Four John Jay Professors Under Investigation For Sexual Misconduct & Drug Dealing'
- 9.Inside Higher Ed — 'John Jay Professors Under Investigation for Selling Drugs, Sexual Misconduct'
- 10.Patch (New York City) — 'John Jay College Sued Over Swamp Sex Scandal'
- 11.The John Jay Sentinel (student newspaper) — 'Anthropology Professor Makes Return to Teaching at John Jay After Disciplinary Review'
- 12.The John Jay Sentinel — 'John Jay Community Reacts to Professor's Return After Alleged Sexual Misconduct and Policy Violations'
- 13.Change.org — 'Reconsider Ric Curtis's Return to John Jay College: Prioritize Safety and Justice' (student petition)
- 14.Academic Sexual Misconduct Database — 'Ric Curtis' record entry
Last updated June 20, 2026