A married New York City teacher was beaming with happiness as she left the courtroom lovingly treated despite raping a 14-year-old boy.
Melissa Rockensies, 33, was all smiles as she left a Queens courthouse Tuesday, as her plea deal will allow her to serve no prison time and will only be required to temporarily surrender her teaching license.
The mother of three will also be ordered to complete a sexual predator program for two years, at which time she will receive her teaching license again.
She had been accused of grooming a young student at her school, sending him a series of sexual messages while maintaining a year-long physical relationship in which they met for sex in his car.
Melissa Rockensies, 33, was all smiles as she left the Queens courthouse Tuesday while entering into a sweetheart settlement for the rape of a 14-year-old student.
The married teacher and mother of two (pictured with her husband, who claimed he was innocent) will serve no prison time and will only be required to temporarily surrender her teaching license.
His teenage victim, who has not been identified, previously told New York Post that his ordeal with the 33-year-old began when she started working at his school in mid-2022.
Rockensies began his advances, he said, by sending him a series of lewd messages and told the outlet that he felt Rockensies had “taken advantage of him because of his age.”
Their communications initially began via email and were due to an issue with another student, and he said he felt “comfortable with her.”
“I was vulnerable with her. I’m smart but I don’t make good decisions. I work on impulse. “If someone says let’s do something, I would say okay, let’s do it,” she said.
Over the course of the next year, he said their relationship escalated rapidly and she was sending depraved messages while caring for their children.
In a text exchange obtained by the New York Post, the teen claimed Rockensies allegedly wrote, “You’ll be lucky once I put this kid to sleep.”
In another text seen by the outlet, Rockensies allegedly wrote: “I want you so much and now I have to go read children’s books like… wtf.”
He also allegedly wrote to the boy: ‘Study your technique and I’ll be moaning for you all day and night, daddy’ and ‘I want to be able to kiss those lips of yours.’
Rockensies is said to have started grooming the boy when he emailed him about a problem with another student, before his messages escalated and became sexual.
The teacher was accused of conducting secret dates with the boy several times a week, including on the school campus and often in her car.
The boy’s mother has since filed a lawsuit alleging that school officials could have prevented this quickly, claiming that signs of the abuse went undetected due to negligence.
In September, after allegedly exchanging hundreds of emails, the couple began messaging on Instagram, and Rockensies finally suggested meeting in person, the teen claimed.
She took the teen for a walk in the park after going to the supermarket, where she was accused of hugging the boy “very close” and then asking him to “kiss him.”
‘It came out of nowhere. I didn’t expect it because he said he has a husband and stuff. I felt weird like I had to hug him back. I hugged her. I kissed her. That’s how it all started.’
The Rockensies’ continued sexual abuse typically ordered the teen to meet her in her car before or after school.
“She told me where to go look for her, where the car is parked,” he said and said that she tried to meet with him every day except Wednesdays, when “she had to take care of the children.”
“Every time we met, we had sex,” he claims, adding that she allegedly gave him gifts such as money and nicotine devices.
‘Most of the time she [gave] my money. The most he gave me was $500,” she said.
In her lawsuit filed in January, the boy’s mother said the negligence of Department of Education officials allowed the abuse to continue undetected.
The lawsuit seeks an undisclosed amount of damages and aims to hold school officials accountable for failing to stop him, said the mother’s attorney, Jonathan Cooper. Patch.
“In reality, when we entrust our children to school, we hope at a minimum that they will not be legally violated,” he said. The age of consent in New York is 17 years old.
“These acts occurred regularly – about four times a week – inside Ms. Rockensies’ car in an area immediately adjacent to Corona Arts, including during school hours.”
Rockensies was accused by her victim of offering money and nicotine devices for secret sex, however her husband claimed she is innocent.
In November 2023, the teacher claimed that the teen had been threatening to “extort” her and accused him of saying he would “shoot her and her children” if she did not pay him $5,000.
The student denied these allegations and said he had been banned from Instagram after missing summer school and that someone else had been messaging him from his account.
Following Rockensies’ arrest, her husband, William, defended the 33-year-old woman and claimed that she is “innocent.”
Talking with him New York Post, her husband said: ‘My wife is innocent. She is a mother of three children. She loves them very much.
‘She has been a big part of the community at her school. We all support her. We’re saying she’s innocent. I won’t elaborate on why.
After a hearing in December, District Attorney Melinda Katz said: ‘These disturbing allegations represent an abuse of authority and a betrayal of the trust that students and parents place in their schools.
“On behalf of the victim and his family, and the vast majority of teachers committed to the education and well-being of our children, we will seek to achieve justice in this case.”
Rockensies was previously dean of Student Leadership and Support at the high school and attended several of the campus events with parents and students.
The teacher reportedly earned about $85,000 last year, and a Department of Education spokeswoman confirmed Rockensies no longer works at the school.
In a statement, they said: “This alleged behavior is extremely worrying and totally unacceptable.”
‘This employee has been reassigned away from the school and students pending the outcome of the arrest and, if found guilty, we will seek his termination.
“Nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our students.”