NJ Teacher Aborted Baby Fathered By Student Victim, Report Says

WALL, NJ — A former Wall Township High School teacher has been sentenced to time in prison for separately engaging in sexual acts with two of her students over the course of several years, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond Santiago said.

Julie Rizzitello, 37, of Brick Township, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison during a hearing before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Jill G. O’Malley on Wednesday.

According to a report from Jersey Shore Online, Rizzitello encouraged one of the students to have sex without protection on his birthday.

Weeks later, she told him she was pregnant and that the timing aligned with their encounter, the report said. Rizzitello terminated the pregnancy.

"Not only does he have to deal with the fact that he’s groomed throughout his entire high school years, that he was preyed upon by his teacher, whom he loved and trusted. That he was sexually abused by this teacher,” O'Malley said during the hearing, according to the report. “But now he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that this individual had an abortion and wasn’t comfortable with it. This is the psychological impact – the devastation.”

Rizzitello was arrested and charged following an investigation that revealed her criminal conduct involved two victims, one of whom she met when he was a freshman, and the other whom she met when he was a junior.

After asking to spend time with them alone and developing a relationship, Santiago said the conduct escalated to sexual activity with each, lasting for several months.

The sex acts with both victims took place largely in three locations, prosecutors said: in Rizzitello’s home in Brick, in a vehicle at a Wall Township parking lot, and at the Belmar bagel shop owned by Rizzitello's family, where each victim was employed, at her suggestion.

While investigation into Rizzitello’s activities was ongoing, authorities said Rizzitello also contacted both victims and asked that they delete evidence of the crimes from their personal electronic devices.

In July 2024, Rizzitello was arrested without incident and resigned from her teaching position.

Prior to being indicted, she pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual assault during a hearing before Judge O’Malley in August 2025.

While the defense requested a reduced term of five years in prison for Rizzitello, Judge O’Malley denied it, ruling that four aggravating factors in the case qualitatively and quantitatively outweighed a single mitigating factor, Santiago said.

According to the report from Jersey Shore Online, the aggravating factors included the vulnerability of the victims, the breach of trust, the risk of re-offense, and the need for deterrence.

Only "slight weight" was given to Rizzitello not having prior criminal convictions, the report said.

During the sentencing hearing, O’Malley also referred to the poignancy of a victim impact statement read into the record.

In addition to Rizzitello's prison sentence, she will also be subject to Parole Supervision for Life, required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, barred from contact with the victims, and ordered to permanently forfeit her teaching position.

“These crimes were not isolated incidents constituting moments of poor judgment; they were textbook cases of grooming, involving a defendant who repeatedly leveraged tactics of isolation, manipulation, and control for the sake of her own selfish purposes,” Santiago said. “The egregious nature of the conduct was further compounded by the plain fact that the emotional and psychological harm she inflicted came at the expense of two of the very same young minds she had been entrusted to develop and nurture.”

Following the sentencing, Wall Township Police Chief Sean O’Halloran commended those who came forward to report these crimes, adding that the police department “remains firmly committed to protecting our residents and standing with victims of crime.”

Previous Coverage

• Ex-Wall High School Teacher Charged With Sexual Assault Of Student
• Teacher Told Wall Student To Delete Texts, Nude Photos: Affidavit
• 2nd Student Sexually Assaulted By Ex-Wall Teacher: Prosecutor
• Ex-Wall Teacher Admits Sexually Assaulting Students, Prosecutor Says