Female Teacher Pleads Guilty To Sleeping With 15-Year-Old Boy Many Times

A former “teacher of the year” has admitted to having sex with a 15-year-old male student.

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Erica DePalo, 33, who previously taught English at West Orange High School in New Jersey, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child on Tuesday, according to the Star Ledger.

From the Ledger:

Erica DePalo will receive a three-year suspended sentence and life parole supervision under the terms of the plea agreement when she is sentenced April 29. She can apply for relief from parole supervision after 15 years.

DePalo also must undergo a psychological evaluation at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel, forfeit her teaching license and never seek public employment. DePalo must register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law and cannot have contact with the victim.

DePalo won the Essex County, N.J. Teacher of the Year award in 2011. In October she was arrested and accused of having a sexual relationship with one of her honors English students, CBS New York reported at the time.

“I was kind of shocked,” West Orange student Arnold Ajondo told CBS New York. ”I was a little surprised. She was really close with the students and we all liked her. She was always there after school if you ever needed any help.”

Another student told the Huffington Post in September that DePalo was “very defensive.”

“She was flirtatious with students,” Sean Davis, 22, a graduate of Rutgers University said. “If you said one thing wrong about her — even if it was a joke — she would be very defensive.”

Source: Huffington Post

10 COMMENTS

  1. Sexual harassment is common place occurrence. Most sexual harassment results from sexual lust or passion. The history of our entertainment industry, manufacturing and service institutions, schools and ministries, departments and agencies etc. is replete with stories of sexual harassments. It is an aspect of workplace violence that is on the rise, yet hardly reported due to socio-cultural and economic implications.

    Erica DePalo, 33, an Essex County, N.J. “Teacher of the Year in 2011”, and onetime English teacher at the West Orange High School in New Jersey, who pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a 15-year-old boy for sleeping with him many times finds herself entangled in a lethal type of love that took firm grip of her ability to resist the temptation. Love stimulants are always deadly and its strength so strong to strangle the most powerful of men and women caught in its web. Many have been strangulated by inappropriate love affairs.

    The twist in the celebrated romance case involving former US president, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a then 21-year-old unpaid intern is a living example of big clouds surrounding sexual harassment at workplace. Apart from Lewinsky refuting having sexual relationship with Clinton on oath, Clinton on his part publicly denied the allegation, saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky”. But as investigators closed in with damning evidence, Clinton changed his plea and admitted in a nationally televised address, “I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate”.

    The case of David Petraeus, the United State’s four-star-general and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as well as the former Commander of the US forces in Afghanistan is still fresh in our memory. When Petraeus started an extramarital affair with a 40-year-old Paula Broadwell, a married woman and mother of two, little did he realized that the inappropriate sexual relationship would cost him his highly venerated job. It did.

    In June 2011, former Democratic US Congressman, Anthony Weiner in a press conference admitted to online relationship with no fewer than six women, after repeated denials.

    In 2001, Rev. Jesse Jackson, a highly respected politician, religious leader, and civil rights activist admitted to an illegitimate love affair with a female staff member; an affair that yielded a daughter in 1999.

    Sexual harassment though hardly reported is on the rise globally. Women are now on the lead in the game of sexual harassment. It a saying come true…. What a man can do woman can do, even better. Reports also indicate that over 2 million workplace assaults occurred in Nigeria yearly. Preceding the two million workplace assaults annually are six million instances of employees being verbally threatened. The young man might have been severally threatened verbally, assaulted and sexually harassed.