(Updates from Friday, July 26, 19:30 CET with Darren Stridiron's statements to Bored Panda have been included at the end of the story.)
On Tuesday, July 16, a school board meeting in Newburgh, NY, erupted when the school board president, Christine Bello, was caught on a hot mic calling a concerned parent an “asshole.”
This slipup was the culmination of a conflict within the Newburgh School District, stretching back nearly a decade and involving allegations of conspiracy, catfishing, and racism. And the hurled obscenity in question was in response to a mother in the district revealing it all to the public.
Newburgh Board of Education President Christine Bello ignited a scandal when she was caught on a hot mic insulting a concerned parent
Image credits: newburghschools
Image credits: change.org
In the livestream of the board meeting, concerned parent Melanie Collins approaches the podium, acknowledges the board, and reveals a poster filled with screenshots of a Facebook profile: a young woman named “Daniel Baez” wearing revealing outfits. She also reveals that the account is friends with multiple members of the school board, including President Bello herself. More shockingly, she reveals the account, which claims to be a "guerilla journalist," has posted “every document, meeting, personal information, superintendent’s home address.”
Collins asserts that the account is a “fake persona.” In fact, she and her fiancé, Aisha Mills, discovered that the photos on the account actually belong to a sex worker whose name is not Daniel Baez and who is not from Newburgh. It's during this revelation that Bello can be heard on the hot mic insulting Collins, apparently upset she would bring this information forward.
Concerned parents, Melanie Collins and Aisha Mills, discovered a Facebook profile they claim had stolen photos from a sex worker who had nothing to do with Newburgh, and the profile was befriended by several members of the school board
Image credits: Newburgh Schools
Image credits: Newburgh Schools
Bored Panda tried to contact both Christine Bello and Daniel Baez, but neither answered. We did, however, speak with Aisha Mills after finding out she’d created a Change.org petition to remove Christine Bello from the board over her outburst. She revealed that she and Collins scoured the allegedly fake Daniel Baez Facebook page after discovering it was “saying horrible, hateful stuff” about Ray Harvey, president of the local NAACP chapter, and Dr. Jackielyn Manning Campbell, the district's new superintendent and the first Black woman in the role.
Since the board meeting, whoever runs the Daniel Baez page has removed and replaced all the photos of the young sex worker, but evidence of racist commentary is still visible. In an inflammatory post, they refer to Aisha Mills as “mulatto.”
“Anytime somebody calls me a mulatto, I know I'm in a fight with some older white guy, generally, or white, white woman,” Mills said.
The allegedly fake profile had been harassing the current school district administration, including its first Black female superintendent, and it had been using racially charged language
Image credits: Daniel Baez
At first, the parents believed the who was a “disgraced” former teacher named Richard Desiderio. According to Mills, Desiderio had recently been teaching in the district at her child’s school. That was his final post before the administration “officially removed him” for “touching students inappropriately, though not sexually.”
We reached out to Desiderio for comment, but he did not respond. Still, records of investigations and proceedings involving him and the Newburgh school district go back to 2015. He was finally terminated in 2023, which he claims was retaliation for him being a whistleblower. He had previously filed a complaint that the district was falsifying the attendance records of student athletes.
Collins and Mills believe the account is related to "disgraced" former teacher Richard Desiderio, who was fired for "touching students inappropriately, though not sexually"
Image credits: Mid Hudson News
Aisha Mills doubts that was really the case. “This is typical employment law. Let me cover myself so you can't fire me. I'm gonna say I'm a whistleblower kinda thing. I know it.”
And while Mills didn’t want to make accusations about the exact reasons Desiderio was fired, she did reveal she and her fiancé had found his Instagram page. “[It] is the most creepy thing I've ever seen in my life. He has hundreds of pictures of children. I don't know whose children these are. But, clearly, I mean, I can't imagine that he has parental consent to have been posting all these children all over his page.” Some of those photos were even at the school their children attend.
His Instagram account appeared racially charged as well. His profile read: “Getting white money, but I’m still black.”
But is the Daniel Baez account really just a fired teacher trying to get his job back?
The parents assert that the fake account is part of a conspiracy to drive out the current administration and ultimately get Desiderio his job back
Image credits: letscoco
Image credits: Richard Desi
Aisha Mills doesn't think so. She believes that the Daniel Baez account and harassment of the board also involve a man named Darren Stridiron who has been a prominent figure in the school district.
Stridiron was previously on the school board himself and sued the district for $45 million because he claimed the his son was wrongly denied valedictorian status. Stridiron was even elected board president in 2023 before being ousted. The district administration filed a complaint with the New York State Education Department, accusing him of "willful neglect of duty" for voting against suspending Desiderio. Stridiron resigned before the Commissioner of Education ruled on the complaint, but he insists it would have been thrown out if he had stayed in his position.
Aisha Mills also believes the allegedly fake Daniel Baez account and Richard Desiderio may be involved with Darren Stridiron, who sued the district for $45 million while he was on the school board
Image credits: Darren Stridiron
In reality, Aisha Mills believes Stridiron is in cooperation with Desiderio to stock the school board and remove the current administration. This is a big problem for her as a parent because she's quite fond of the superintendent, Dr. Manning Campbell. “She's kind of been a really great get,” Mills said. “They did a national search with a firm.”
It’s important to Mills that her daughters see the first Black woman superintendent in the district succeed and not be pushed out by what she views as racist interests.
“Representation matters to how our young people see the possibility of themselves,” she told me. “So, I will never back away from that. In talking about race and in talking about diversity and talking about representation, it should be front and center as a badge of honor and pridefulness for us. And to watch [Desiderio, Stridiron, and Bello] have the opposite effect is really damaging, and it just can't go on.”
Collins and Mills believe that regardless of who is behind it, the conspiracy is damaging to the school district and its children, and they have vowed to fight back despite resistance and retaliation
Image credits: Melanie Collins
Christine Bello allowed Richard Desiderio to speak at the board meeting, something Aisha Mills claimed should not be allowed because he does not live in the district or have children in it—incidentally, neither does Christine Bello.
For the moment, Daniel Baez, whoever he or she may actually be, got one step closer to their goal. But that won’t stop Aisha Mills and Melanie Collins from fighting back. “This is not going to stop,” Mills said. “She thinks we’re coming for her now.”
Indeed, Christine Bello’s outburst at the board meeting seems to have only been the public ignition of what’s sure to be a larger conflict. Mills confided that after the meeting, Collins received a “harassing text message” that was claimed to have come from board member Victoria Bousche. The only problem? Collins was standing right next to Bousche at the time.
It seems someone has graduated from fake Facebook profiles to fake phone numbers.
Since our initial investigation, Darren Stridiron has spoken to Bored Panda to deny Aisha Mill's claims and detail his allegations of corruption in the Newburgh school district
Image credits: Newburgh Enlarged City School District
Darren Stridiron denies any involvement with the Daniel Baez Facebook account or conspiracy with Richard Desiderio as well as any racist motivations. Nevertheless, he does admit he’s a strong opponent of the current school administration despite having voted to bring on Dr. Manning Campbell originally. “[I] was looking forward to seeing her fulfill the promises she made to do the right thing,” he said. “Unfortunately, those promises were not kept and the entire district is dealing with the consequences of those actions.”
Most recently, he has alleged discrepancies with the district’s finances. For example, he says that after the public was informed of an $11 million budget shortfall and subsequent jobs cuts, the administration claimed to have found a $13.8 million surplus. He asserts that the new superintendent has ignored these concerns, which is why he’s demanding a forensic audit.
However, corruption in the district has hit close to home for Stridiron as well. Not only did he initially approve the investigation following Desiderio’s whistleblower complaint, but he served on a 2019 grand jury that found the district had indeed been falsifying attendance records for years.
As a result, he says the district retaliated by manipulating student records to deny his son valedictorian status. Additionally, he and his family have faced “physical and verbal threats.” Most disturbingly, he claims his nine-year-old non-verbal autistic son was abused by a bus aide who told him she was "going to break his face,” but the district covered up the matter.
“I have had nine tires with nails put in them,” he told us. “Two carloads full of men come to my house and threaten my wife and sons. They falsified my oldest son's educational records. This administration uses people like Aisha Mills and Ms. Collins to attack me and anyone else that is trying to make the district better.”
While he did sue the district for $45 million while being a sitting board member, he assured us that this was his means of fighting back. “We were forced to sue the district because they violated both my rights and my son's rights. I never want to sue the district but there comes a point where someone had to take a stand against the manipulation of student records and personal attacks against me and my family. We filed a lawsuit to make a statement that we were not going to be bullied into silence.”
The Newburgh Enlarged City School District declined to comment on this matter.