NJ Criminal Defense Law News & Information Blog

A female New Jersey High School teacher fom Howell Township New Jersey recently received a five year probationary term from a Middlesex County Judge for having a sexual relationship with one of her seventeen year old male students. The teacher waived her right to have the case presented to grand jury and plead guilty to a fourth degree count of cruelty and neglect. Apparently the teacher was 35 or 36 at the time the sexual relationship with the seventeen year old student. This case highlights one of the potential advantages to negotiating at the early stages of a case. I do not know the strengths and weaknesses of the State's case but the plea allowed the defendant to avoid a potential indictment for second degree sexual assault. Perhaps even more importantly, the defendant avoided the implications of Megan's law and parole supervision for life . Read the rest of this entry »

A New Jersey man was recently found not guilty of Aggravated Sexual Assault and Endangering the Welfare of a Child after a Middlesex County New Jersey Jury deliberated for just 40 minutes, according to a July 5, 2009 Newark Star Ledger article. According to the article, charges of Sexual Assault an Endangering the Welfare of a Child were filed against the accused after a teenage boy told his grandmother that the accused, his former coach, had sexually assaulted him years earlier. The accused had been interviewed by the police for over 3 hours where he vehemently denied the allegations. The accused, nonetheless, was charged, indicted and tried before a jury. Read the rest of this entry »