Teacher, Predator

Claiming to serve as a mentor and friend, a veteran Queens teacher targeted and groomed 13 female students for improper relationships, investigators found. He will quietly retire.

Year after year, a Queens high school teacher exploited “an endless pool” of female students, preying on at least 13 young Asian women he found sexually attractive.

Douglas T. Von Hoppe, a library specialist at Maspeth High School, cultivated improper relationships with students, starting during school and going further after they graduated, according to a highly detailed 13-page report released in January by the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation, Anastasia Coleman.

“His role as a high school teacher provided him with an endless pool from which to carefully select young women with whom he wanted to pursue relationships,” Coleman concluded.

The SCI identifies the young women as Students A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L and M.

Douglas T. Von Hoppe confessed his attraction to female Asian students in texts to a friend obtained by a Manhattan prosecutor in an unrelated case..

In its 2025 annual report, published last month, the SCI cites the Von Hoppe case as a prime example of its mission to root out fraud and abuse in NYC public schools.

In calendar year 2025, the SCI received a startling 897 complaints of inappropriate or sexual conduct by school employees and vendors.

The agency investigated 157 of those complaints, and substantiated allegations in 62 cases, the report says.

It cites the Von Hoppe case as a prime example.

The SCI first received a complaint about Von Hoppe in 2021, alleging he had “multiple inappropriate relationships” with female students, picked Asian girls as his library assistants, and “hung out” with them at museums and other sites after school.

“Von Hoppe isolated the students from their families so that they were emotionally dependent on him,” the complainant told investigators.

When questioned, Von Hoppe “justified his behavior by claiming to be their ‘mentor’ and ‘friend.’ ”

Several students initially interviewed denied Von Hoppe acted inappropriately.

One called him “a great teacher who wanted to help students who worked hard, and stayed in contact to help them achieve success.”

SCI closed the probe but soon after reopened it when an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, conducting a criminal trial, shared graphic text messages between the defendant in the case and his “best friend,” Von Hoppe, then age 57.

In texts dating to 2018, the married Von Hoppe confessed his lust for female Asians, and detailed experiences with current and former students.

“He criticized his wife’s body, then stated he was ready for ‘small and firm’, ” he told his friend, describing the looks of two students, the SCI report says.

Van Hoppe doted on the girls he selected, bragging that some had crushes on him or “idolize me,” he texted. “It’s my duty to honor them.” He wrote of one, “Our chemistry is there.”

He gave birthday and Valentine’s Day gifts like “cute tops.” He paid the deposit on an apartment for Student H.

He arranged internships at his friend’s construction consulting business for nine of the 13 students.

He took them to tennis, tutoring sessions at his home, dinners, hiking trips, sailing, the beach and even on vacations.

As confessed to his friend in texts, he ogled their bodies, with comments like “Nice legs, nice thighs” and “Wow! (Her) upper body is amazing.”

After a surgery, he texted, “My equipment still works. It happened during chat.”

He wrote of Student B phoning him, “She was lying on her bed with long wet hair, being flirty and seductive.”

Von Hoppe leered at students F and H in an outdoor shower at the beach —“the sexiest thing in the world,” he texted

On another outing, Von Hoppe wrote, “Student B started feeding me from with her chopstick. Biggest turn-on I’ve had all year.”

He took a nine-day trip to Vermont with Student H after she had graduated, later telling his pal she “brought his ‘sex drive’ back,” the report says.

The students ducked SCI investigators seeking to question them about Von Hoppe’s texts.

In October 2023, Von Hoppe declined to speak with investigators, citing his status as a tenured teacher.

The SCI report blasts Von Hoppe’s actions as “grossly unprofessional, predatory and manipulative.”

Hoppe was “reassigned away from students” in February 2024, but remained on the city payroll.

In a Feb. 8, 2024 letter to then-Chancellor David Banks, SCI’s Coleman urged the DOE to terminate the teacher, who joined the DOE in 2001 and Maspeth High in 2016.

Instead, Von Hoppe was “reassigned away from students,” a DOE spokeswoman said. That typically means a teacher reports to a “rubber room” – office space where accused employees sit idle pending the disciplinary process.

Meanwhile, Von Hoppe remained on the city payroll. His latest salary: $140,588.

Because Von Hoppe has tenure, the DOE can’t fire him without due process.

But the DOE and Von Hoppe reached a settlement to skip an administrative trial.

Von Hoppe agreed to “irrevocably retire” at an unspecified date, DOE officials informed SCI, according to SCI spokesperson Anna Correa.

Von Hoppe will retire at the end of this school year, the DOE said. That’s more than two years after SCI completed its investigation.

He’s not the only exiled Maspeth HS offender granted a gentle exit.

Ex-principal Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir, found to have used fraudulent grading and credit schemes, agreed in 2022 to retire in 2029 – after seven more years on the DOE payroll, with all the contractual raises and fringe benefits. His latest salary: $212,016.

Von Hoppe’s Linkedin page went down after this reporter messaged him to ask about the SCI report. He did not respond to requests for comment sent to his DOE email address.

His New York State teaching licenses in art and as a library media specialist, issued in 2005 and 2006, remain active, according to the state education department website.