Jonathan Merceus loves roaming the sideline as a basketball coach. And he was overjoyed last summer when Manhattanville University hired him for his first head coaching job.
But it was stripped away from him just a few games into the season when he was arrested and accused of choking a student at Shrub Oak International School, a boarding school for autistic children and young adults in Yorktown where Merceus worked in his spare time.
Merceus had been trying to calm a combative boy who attacked him and knew he hadn’t crossed the line.
A grand jury declined to indict Merceus last month after he took the rare step of testifying. The charges – obstruction of breathing, a misdemeanor, and first-degree endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, a felony – were formally dismissed in Yorktown Justice Court on Thursday, April 23.
But the exoneration came too late to save his job, as Manhattanville opted to elevate the assistant who finished the season leading the team. He accepts that the school had to move on and remains appreciative they gave him his first shot at running a program.
“The fact that I got that job, and the way I did, working my way up, it meant the world to me,” the 34-year-old Yorktown resident said in an interview this week. “I try to do things the right way. I really do. I worked my way up each and every year and I finally made it to that position and for it to get snatched from me like that for a bogus allegation, it really is disheartening.”
Merceus played college ball at Pace University and then spent six years as an assistant coach there, first as a graduate assistant and eventually top assistant.
While coaching he worked with special needs children, and was hired as a supervisor at Shrub Oak in 2023. As his coaching responsibilities increased at Pace, he decided he didn’t have the time to commit to Shrub Oak.
Still, he agreed when the administration asked him to continue on a part-time basis. He did that two or three times a month, though they called him almost every week to see if he was available to fill a shift or even work a double. He continued it once he took the Manhattanville job last August.
On Oct. 26, Merceus worked with a boy he’d been assigned to a few times, though hadn’t been with in a few months. He said he knew him to be somewhat combative but that he had never had a problem with him.
“He was behaving well, and eating and laughing, even a supervisor mentioned ‘You guys work really well together,’ Merceus recalls. “I was like ‘Yeah this is my guy.”
After lunch they walked around campus and back to his room for a nap. He tucked the boy in and sat in the doorway. A short time later the boy woke up and came at Merceus.
“Out of nowhere he attacks me, he smacks me open hand in my face,” Merceus said. “I get up and he starts to rush me and attack me…I don’t want to say I was shocked, because I know that’s he’s capable of it, but I was confused. ‘Man we were having a great day, you didn’t show any signs of what you’re doing right now.'”
He said he could handle the punches and scratches, but when the boy started trying to bite him he knew he had to restrain him. He grabbed his wrists and put him lightly on the bed, trying to buy some time until he would calm down.
A supervisor walked in and tried to further de-escalate the situation. Merceus thought she did a good job, as the boy’s focus shifted away from him and on to her. He was even going to text her later to tell her so. As the boy was still struggling, she left and called for someone to relieve Merceus, a staff swap they call a “change of face”.
He stuck around to make sure the boy was under control and then left the room. Soon he got a message from the director to meet him. When he got there, he was told to clock out and leave. He was dumbfounded. All the director would tell him was that the supervisor said the situation wasn’t good in the room, that the boy had turned colors, Merceus recalled.
Police were called and later that day he went to headquarters and described how he had been defending himself. The next morning he got an email that he was fired. Two weeks later a Yorktown detective called him to come to headquarters. He was told the supervisor claimed Merceus had two hands around the boy’s throat and seemed to be choking him.
He was arrested and after news reports of the case he was removed as coach. He had coached the Valiants for six games.
There was no video of the altercation. But when Merceus’ lawyers James Timko and Hannah Robbins reviewed video from the hallway they saw nothing that would suggest a sense of urgency on the supervisor’s part. She was seen entering the room, exiting calmly and then calling for another staff member to relieve Merceus. No sense of urgency, no indication a 6-foot-5, 250 pound man was harming a vulnerable student.
The boy was audible but non-verbal. On the video, a shriek was heard at one point but nothing to suggest he was struggling to breathe, Timko said. When a nurse came in to check the boy as is policy following restraint situations, no problems were found.
“No bruising, no nothing, no injury, just somebody’s allegation,” Merceus said.
The lawyers also learned that the boy had been taken for medical treatment twice in the previous month, including once for a broken nose. And on Oct. 26 he had two black eyes before Merceus even began working with him.
The school was the subject of an expose in 2024 by Pro Publica that detailed parents concerns with the school, staffing shortages and the lack of state oversight of Shrub Oak. It detailed two previous arrests on abuse allegations. Later that year, another employee was arrested on a felony endangering charge, accused of shoving a student in the hallway. The Westchester District Attorney’s Office said he pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor and was given a conditional discharge, which means if he stays out of trouble until September he will be spared incarceration or probation.
Timko believes the school rushed to judgment because of the prior bad publicity and the boy’s earlier injuries.
“Everything (from the video) matches except what (the supervisor) claims she saw,” he said. “I can’t get inside people’s heads … but my feeling is this was the third incident, something had to be done and they did it.”
In a statement, school officials said they were disappointed in the outcome of the case.
“Our decision to involve the authorities was driven by a commitment to the safety of our community and a responsibility to ensure these serious allegations were fully investigated,” the statement said. “While we respect the principle of due process, we believe the gravity of the claims warranted a full judicial proceeding. Our priority remains the well-being of our students and maintaining a safe, supportive learning environment.”
Merceus said he won’t ever look to work in a similar setting, calling the prospect of being falsely accused again “terrifying”.
And the ordeal “has beat me down to the core”, he said. His 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter don’t understand the details but they knew something was wrong. One day when he got home after a court appearance his daughter asked him why he was sad.
“From that day, I’m like, you will never ask me that question again,” he said.
Merceus said he was indebted to Timko and Robbins for their work on the case. He said he will try tirelessly at getting back into coaching, knowing it will mean working his way up again.
If he gets another shot, he’s promised to add an inbounds play suggested by his lawyer based on something Boston Celtics legend Dave Cowens ran when he coached the Chicago Fire of the WNBA. The play will be called “Timko”.
Robbins said it hurt to watch Merceus, who she called a joyful person and good husband and father, suffer over the last several months and she was proud to help clear his name.
“I’m deeply sad that he was put in this situation,” she said. “As soon as we looked at the evidence it was clear to us that he was innocent.”
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Choking charges dismissed against Yorktown man who lost coaching job
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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