Clinton Knoll (continued)

His claim that he was the victim of a student assailant led to a lockdown of the school campus for several house and prompted police to focus their attention on Ryan DiStefano, then a student at the school, whom Knoll had implicated as his attacker.

Knoll was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie with a wound that police later said was less than 2 centimeters deep. He was arrested two weeks later, on Nov. 17, 2003, when, after being confronted with a number of inconsistencies in statements he made to authorities, he confessed.

In August 2005, Knoll pleaded guilty to one count of falsely reporting an incident, admitting that he staged the attack and lied to police about the incident. He was sentenced by Hyde Park Justice David Steinberg to a conditional discharge and ordered to pay to the state police and Hyde Park police $7,224 for their costs in investigating the false claims.

Although Knoll resigned from his post with the school district shortly after his arrest, he remains a state-certified biology and general science teacher and school administrator.

No reason was given for the extraordinary delay in revoking his certification.
Source: Kingston Daily Freedom link

TT entry.