Karen Heitner, principal of Pasadena Elementary in Plainview, denies sexual harassment allegations during emotional testimony

A Plainview-Old Bethpage principal denied sexually harassing employees or making sexual remarks during an emotional disciplinary hearing this week — the first time she has publicly addressed those accusations against her.

Karen Heitner, principal of Pasadena Elementary School in Plainview, also alleged that her boss, Superintendent Mary O'Meara, pressured her to resign in a meeting held weeks after a PTA luncheon in which the district said Heitner inappropriately touched two female staffers.

The July 2024 meeting occurred the day before her mother’s funeral, Heitner testified Monday through tears. The principal said that O'Meara told her, “This is the time" to resign and that "everybody will understand," given her mother had just died.

As Heitner listened, she recalled coming to a decision.

“I said to myself, ‘Karen, you are strong and you can fight this,’ ” Heitner said in a choked-up voice as her husband, daughter and best friend, who has attended almost all of the 19 disciplinary hearings held since April, watched from the audience.

O'Meara, who was present for this testimony, denied pressuring Heitner to resign and said after the hearing that she was “stunned” by some of Heitner’s statements.

Heitner was suspended in August 2024 and faces administrative charges alleging she touched two staffers' buttocks during the June 2024 luncheon and created a hostile and unsafe work environment for other employees. The district is seeking to fire her.

The two staffers, an occupational therapist and a speech therapist, have accused Heitner of sexual assault in separate lawsuits against her and the district. They testified in May the principal grabbed their buttocks at the luncheon and pushed forward, leaving them feeling angry and violated.

Heitner denied touching the speech therapist and said she touched the occupational therapist’s hip to get her attention.

“I think I pushed her with my two fingers,” she testified. “It happened so quickly.”

Heitner denied she said “I goosed you” to the occupational therapist, as has been alleged. The principal testified that after the initial touch, she was “play-fighting” with the woman, flailing her hands and kicking her foot up.

"We were just fooling around," she said.

Her encounters with the two women were captured on video without sound, and the footage was played numerous times throughout the hearings. The staffers' attorney, Tim Alamgir, wrote in court documents that the footage was “clear evidence” of sexual assault.

Different witnesses who watched the video, however, did not agree on what they saw. The camera was set some distance away and Heitner’s exact hand movements were difficult to observe.

In the case of the speech therapist, Maria Carnesi, co-president of the district's administrators union, previously testified she did not see physical contact between the two.

The district's assistant superintendent for human resources and safety, Christopher Donarummo, who investigated the allegations against Heitner, said the footage confirmed contact. But he has testified he didn’t see the encounter unfold as alleged in the woman’s notice of claim, which was submitted before her lawsuit was filed.

Heitner also denied Monday that she made sexual innuendos to the occupational therapist on two occasions — one in the main office in May 2024 and another in a school hallway after the PTA luncheon.

The speech therapist also said the principal made an inappropriate sexual remark to her at a school-authorized event in 2023, which Heitner denied.

Heitner, who began her testimony in November, has also denied or downplayed other allegations against her. She said a computer technology aide volunteered to go on the roof and was not directed by her to do so, as alleged, to take photos of students. She testified that she interviewed students near the classroom of teacher Joseph LeRea, who was being investigated, because children might find it intimidating to go to the principal's office but stopped when told it was inappropriate.

Heitner said she tried to set up teacher Nicole Seidler with her friend Eric Nezowitz, an assistant superintendent in Roosevelt, one time when they talked in a school hallway and stopped after Seidler said she did not want to date him. She denied having told Nezowitz she pinched an employee’s buttocks as Nezowitz testified, and said what she told him was that she was accused of pinching someone.

Bias alleged

Throughout the hearings, Heitner’s attorneys have argued that several of the teachers making allegations against her were biased because they were unhappy with how the principal supervised them and other employees.

Heitner testified that Seidler and LeRea were furious with her after she investigated allegations against them in separate cases, even though the claims were determined to be unfounded in both instances. Teacher Peter Ravo, who also claimed misconduct, had not been recommended for tenure by Heitner.

The principal said some teachers were also unhappy with her because of changes she implemented at the school. One example she gave was that she changed arrival and dismissal times, which increased teachers’ contact time with children.

Heitner said she believed the staffers “saw an opportunity” after the PTA luncheon to accuse her of misconduct based on prior events.

"These women and men from Pasadena worked together … to try to get me out of the building,” she said.

Heitner is to continue testifying Dec. 10, which is expected to be the final hearing. State-appointed hearing officer James Brown will issue his ruling after the hearings' conclusion.