MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Charges are being dropped against a father once accused of threatening to burn down Scheck Hillel Community School school in Northeast Miami-Dade County after seeing his son forced to wear a mask outside.
“I spent a night in jail. My son was taken out of school for no reason,” said Mark Polyakov, who told Local 10 News he plans to take legal action against the school.
An attorney representing Polyakov said his threatening messages in a group chat were misunderstood.
“The only burning down that he intended to do to Hillel School was to burn them down legally,” attorney Mark Eiglarsh said.
Eiglarsh said the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office made the right call in not pursuing charges.
“My client is extremely grateful, as am I that the state saw through the bogus charges brought by law enforcement,” he said. “Clearly he had no intent to actually burn the school down but rather burn it down legally.”
“The defendant clarified later in the thread that he meant to legally burn down the school,” a prosecutor wrote in a closeout memo about Polyakov’s posts on a group chat.
Polyakov was upset that the school was forcing his son to wear a face mask while playing sports outdoors. He took to the “No More Masks Hillel” parents’ group to vent. Miami-Dade police officers arrested him last month.
Polyakov’s son was expelled from the school and he says he now cries every day because his son can’t get into school.