A former New Jersey teacher has been sentenced to prison after engaging in sexual acts with two of her students over the course of several years, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office announced. Julie Rizzitello, 37, of Brick Township, a former Wall Township High School English teacher, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after an investigation revealed she engaged in sexual acts with two students, one of whom she met when he was a freshman, and the other she met when he was a junior. After initially asking to spend time with them alone and developing a casual, friendly relationship, prosecutors said the criminal conduct escalated to sexual activity with each student, lasting for a period of several months. Prosecutors said the sexual acts with both victims took place mainly in three locations: in Rizzitello’s home, 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 the investigation was ongoing, prosecutors 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. Prior to being indicted, prosecutors said she pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree Sexual Assault during a hearing. “In ruling that four aggravating factors in the case qualitatively and quantitatively outweighed a single mitigating factor, Judge O’Malley referred directly to the poignancy of a victim impact statement read into the record earlier during the sentencing hearing in denying a defense request for a reduced term of 5 years in prison,” prosecutors wrote in a statement. In addition to the 10 year sentence, prosecutors said Rizzitello will also be subjected 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,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said in a news release. “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.” Resources for victims of sexual assault are available through the National Sexual Violence Resources Center and the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-4673. ...read more read less