One of “creepy” Queens high school principal William Bassell’s sex abuse accusers is poised to get a whopping $700,000 settlement from the city in a civil lawsuit, the Daily News has learned — and the six-figure payoff could be the tip of the iceberg.
The accuser — a “Jane Doe” teacher who says the veteran Queens principal sent her more than 30,000 text messages and inappropriately touched her for years while the Department of Education turned a blind eye – has agreed with the city to the eye-popping amount, according to a July 6 filing in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The ink on the agreement isn’t dry yet, though — the accuser is objecting to language in the settlement she fears would prevent her from suing Bassell individually in the future.
But assuming her case is resolved, taxpayers could still be on the hook for more payout pain — five more women are suing both the city and Bassell in a separate federal lawsuit in Brooklyn, and settlement talks in that case have been underway for months, court records show.
Bassell, 67, the longtime principal at the Academy of American Studies in Astoria, was hit last year with a cascade of sexual abuse and harassment allegations from two civil lawsuits and a criminal case in Queens.
His accusers paint him as a serial abuser who earned the nickname “Creepy Bill” by treating the high school as “his personal playground for sexual fulfillment” for at least a decade, while the city Department of Education stonewalled attempts to report him.
In May, the Daily News reported, Bassell took a deal to have the criminal charges against him dismissed, as long as he stayed out of trouble, retired from his position, and completed a sex offender counseling program.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit is one of the two women whose allegations led to his arrest on misdemeanor sex abuse and forcible touching charges last June.
According to the criminal complaint against him, she accused him of blocking her from getting out of a vehicle outside the school on June 6, 2024, then grazing her neck and breast over her clothes without her consent.
Doe has only named the city, not Bassell, in her civil suit. She and her lawyer, Annie Seifullah, have taken issue with a provision in the settlement agreement that would ” release the DOE and the City of New York (“City”), all present or former officials, officers, employees, representatives, insurers, affiliates, affiliate employees, or agents of the DOE and the City.”
She’s asking for another settlement conference to include a “carve-out” that would allow allow her to sue Bassell in the future as an individual.
“Our client agreed to settle her claims against the New York City Department of Education, but she never understood that settlement to require her to give up claims against Bassell personally,” Siefullah said Tuesday. “The disagreement before the Court is a narrow one, and we’re hopeful it can be resolved promptly so that my client can finally have certainty and closure.”
Anthony DelMundo for New York Daily News
Principal William Bassell is pictured in 2005. (Anthony DelMundo for New York Daily News)
The city’s lawyers are resisting that addition, saying that the provision is “standard release language” used in hundreds of thousands of cases, and that altering it would open the Department of Education up to more liability, despite the settlement.
“The City is proposing its standard release language, which has been used in hundreds of thousands of cases,” a city Law Department spokesman said in a statement Tuesday. “As detailed in our letter to the Court, deviating from the City’s standard release language would undermine this settlement and expose the City— and, by extension, the tax-paying public — to potential future liability of an unknown magnitude.”
The law department spokesman pointed out the city has refused to represent Bassell in the second lawsuit — which was filed against both him and the Department of Education by four sexual abuse accusers and a guidance counselor who accused him of retaliating against her for reporting his alleged abuse of a student.
Bassell, who has had trouble finding a lawyer to represent him, only recently retained a pro bono lawyer solely to represent him in settlement talks.
Bassell did not return a message seeking comment.
Bill Turnbull / New York Daily News; Google
Principal William Bassell (inset) allegedly sent the woman more than 30,000 text messages after she started working at his school, the Academy of American Studies in Astoria (main). (Bill Turnbull / New York Daily News; Google)
The accusers include a former student who alleges Bassell sexually assaulted her during a 2015 field trip to the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center; an assistant principal who says he subjected her to inappropriate texts and frequent groping, stroking, caressing and touching; a social worker who says he touched without consent and made lewd comments to for years, including once whispering to her that he wanted to order ‘suck me yum soup’” from a Chinese restaurant; and a guidance counselor who alleges he caressed her pregnant stomach and barged in on her while she was pumping breast milk.
The women’s lawyer, Amy Robinson, said she didn’t want the talk of settlement numbers to overshadow the damage he caused over his career.
“This is really about the harm inflicted on so many women,” she said.“All five of my clients were very seriously damaged by the way they were mistreated for years.”
