ALBANY – A teacher may proceed with his claim that state education staffers sabotaged his efforts to find a new job by alerting prospective employers that he had sexual relations with two former students more than 20 years ago, a federal judge has ruled.

Randy Mudge’s teaching license was suspended for a year and resigned as a physical education teacher and coach in the Hunter-Tannersville Central School District in Greene County as the result of an investigation by the Education Department during the 2008-09 school year.