Woman claims she was defamed, held against will

Monday, April 14, 2008
By PAUL KOEPP

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Sopharie Leang was born into a royal family in Cambodia, and her husband Song was an ambassador to Austria before the Khmer Rouge regime ravaged their families in the 1970s.
But she is traumatized by a more recent event, according to her lawyer.
A former teacher at School 11 in Jersey City, Leang is in a legal battle with school officials, saying she was harassed, slandered and held against her will in a bizarre incident six years ago.
Leang was counting books along with students and aides in her classroom on June 24, 2002 - her last day of a year of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) at the Bergen Avenue school - when she was approached by a fellow ESL teacher, Vladimir Ashworth.
Leang alleged in a 2003 lawsuit that Ashworth, who she said sexually harassed her throughout the year, then fabricated a threat by Leang.
When she commented that, because of work on her doctorate degree, she was under stress that "could have killed some people," Ashworth asked whether Leang wanted to kill everyone in the room, according to the lawsuit.
After Ashworth reported the supposed threat, Principal Angela Bruno held Leang in a nurse's office for several hours against her will, Leang claimed.
"Why not just send her home?" her Jersey City attorney, Daniel Sexton, said in a phone interview. "She wants to clear her name."
Leang, who claimed she was also roughed up by police in the incident, was then taken to Christ Hospital for psychiatric evaluation and released later that night.
Claiming false imprisonment, defamation and wrongful termination, she sought punitive damages from Ashworth, Bruno and the Jersey City Board of Education, as well as from the Jersey City Police Department and Jersey City Medical Center, whose employees removed her from the school.
Although Superior Court Judge Frances Antonin threw out the lawsuit in 2005, a state appeals court slammed the dismissal in a ruling April 2, saying that Antonin did not justify her decision and should be removed from the case. The appeals court said portions of the lawsuit should go forward.
Leang has settled her claims against the JCPD.
In addition, the appeals court dismissed a sexual harassment claim against Ashworth, who had defended himself by saying he is gay.
A spokesman for the Board of Education, Gerard Crisonino, said that Ashworth resigned in 2005 and Bruno retired last year. He said he could not comment on pending litigation.
Sexton said the remaining claims could go to trial in May or June.