Joel Kolko — Yeshiva Torah Temimah, Brooklyn (endangering plea — not a sex-offense conviction)
A first-grade teacher at Yeshiva Torah Temimah who, indicted on felony sex-abuse charges, pleaded guilty in 2008 to two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child — not a sex-offense conviction — and received three years' probation with no registration requirement.
Orthodox Jewish Pleaded guilty — endangering the welfare of a child (not a sex-offense conviction)
- Person
- Joel Kolko (Yehuda Kolko)
- Role
- Elementary-school (first-grade) teacher; rabbi
- Institution
- Yeshiva Torah Temimah, Brooklyn
- Location
- Kings County (Brooklyn), New York
- Status
- Pleaded guilty (2008) to endangering the welfare of a child — NOT a sex-offense conviction
- Sentence
- 3 years' probation (2008); no jail time; no sex-offender registration
Case in brief
Tier 1 · Court-proven — the plea as the court records it
Read the label. Joel Kolko was NOT convicted of a sex offense. Indicted in 2007 on felony sex-abuse charges arising from his first-grade classroom, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child. That plea — and nothing beyond it — is what a court established, and it is why he appears in this archive: the record of what the system settled for is itself part of the pattern this archive documents.
Joel Kolko taught first grade at Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Brooklyn. In 2007 he was indicted for allegedly sexually abusing a student in his class. In 2008, in satisfaction of that indictment and a second one, he pleaded guilty to two counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child (Penal Law § 260.10), a Class A misdemeanor, and was sentenced to three years’ probation and a final Order of Protection. Contemporaneous reporting confirms the plea carried no jail time and no sex-offender registration, leaving him legally able to teach again. The District Attorney’s office explained the plea deal publicly at the time; the reporting on its reasoning is in the sources below.
The record
Tier 1 · Court-proven
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Indictment | 2007 — felony sex-abuse charges (Penal Law § 130.65 allegations) |
| Guilty plea | 2008 — two counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child (§ 260.10), Class A misdemeanor |
| Sentence | 3 years’ probation; Order of Protection |
| Later proceeding | 2012 — tried on criminal-contempt charges alleging violation of the Order of Protection; acquitted by a jury |
Status
Closed. No custodial sentence was ever imposed. The 2012 contempt acquittal is part of this record and is stated as such: an acquittal is an outcome of the court, and this archive reports it in the same file as the plea.
Attributed allegations — not court findings
Tier 2 · Attributed allegations
The underlying classroom allegations were never tried; the felony indictment was resolved by the misdemeanor plea above. This file makes no finding about them, and neither did the court that accepted the plea.
Records requested & responses
This archive has not filed records requests in this case. The file rests on the published sources below and will be updated if court or institutional records are obtained, or if that changes.
Sources
- People v Kolko, 2012 NY Slip Op 22224 — the court’s own recitation of the 2007 indictment, the 2008 plea to two § 260.10 counts, the probation sentence and Order of Protection, and the 2012 contempt trial: law.justia.com
- The Guardian (March 29, 2012) — ‘In April 2008, Kolko pled guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment (not a sex crime), was given three years probation, was not required to register as a sex offender,’ via BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org
- Jewish Week (April 30, 2008) — the plea and the District Attorney’s explanation of it, via BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org
Filed October 25, 2026, from the published sources below. Minor victims are never named or identified in this file.