A sadistic Brooklyn day-care teacher locked terrified toddlers alone in a tiny, dark storage closet — and laughingly claimed it was a lesson in “how to survive,” according to the facility’s owner.
In shocking security-video footage at Pinocchio Children’s Palace in East Flatbush, teacher Shandra Fallen, 25, and her assistant, Amellia Samuda, 34, are captured ushering 2-year-olds into the classroom closet.
Day-care owner Tatiana Ilyaich said she discovered the solitary confinement in June, when she heard crying coming from Fallen’s classroom across the hall from her office.
She found the teachers in the room and most of their young charges taking naps on their cots — and sobs coming from the supply closet.
She opened the door and saw a scared young boy inside.
The teachers “started laughing,” Ilyaich recalled.
“It’s kind of a game we’re playing with the kids,” Fallen said, according to Ilyaich.
The owner said she immediately scoured security-camera footage for signs of similar incidents. Images taken on May 14 chilled her.
In the footage — viewed by The Post — Fallen can be seen putting one small child into the closet, which is packed with supply-stuffed shelving, and leaving him there alone for three minutes before releasing him.
She then picks out 2-year-old Mahli Mathias and guides him to the same closet before shutting him in. Seven minutes later, Fallen returns and opens the door. She steps into the closet and out of view. After about a minute, Fallen steps out and shuts the door behind her, leaving the boy inside.
Another toddler walks over and pounds on the outside of the closed door, but neither adult pays any attention.
Samuda then goes into the closet, shutting herself inside with the boy for another minute before exiting alone. Mahli is finally allowed out — 10 minutes after he was first imprisoned.
The day she viewed the video, Ilyaich said she reported the abuse to authorities and alerted parents. She fired the two teachers the next business day.
The Administration for Children’s Services and the city Health Department said they investigated. But it is unclear if law enforcement was ever notified, or if investigators ever viewed videotapes or interrogated the teachers about being alone with the child inside the closet.
Both the NYPD and the Brooklyn DA’s office told The Post they had no record of the case.
When Fallen applied for unemployment in June, she shrugged off the incident to the state Labor Department. Fallen allegedly said she didn’t remember “details” of that day, a Labor official told Ilyaich, but that it “was kind of a game, that they were teaching [the kids] how to survive if they are by themselves.”
Mahli’s mom, Gabrielle Henmings, is suing Pinocchio, Fallen and Samuda in Brooklyn Supreme Court, for unspecified damages and is accusing the teachers and the day care of negligence.
Fallen’s lawyer, Nicholas Wooldridge, had not seen the lawsuit but said, “We deny any wrongdoing.” Samuda did not return messages seeking comment.
Ilyaich said she had no prior problems with the teachers, who began working at the Lenox Road day-care center in November.
Fallen and Samuda “had been properly screened,” said the Health Department.