A former New Jersey high school teacher who groomed two of her students before sexually assaulting them, including at her family’s bagel shop, was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Julie Rizzitello, 37, who taught at Wall High School in Wall Township, was sentenced during a hearing in Monmouth County Superior Court, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Bureau and Wall Township police found that Rizzitello met one victim as a freshman and the other as a junior at the high school. Authorities said she asked to spend time alone with the teens and developed a friendly relationship before escalating to sexual activity over several months.
While the investigation was ongoing, Rizzitello contacted both victims and asked them to delete evidence of the crimes from their electronic devices, authorities said.
Police arrested Rizzitello without incident in July 2024 after a district employee notified them of her relationship with a student, according to the sexual contact in his car in Brick in May 2024, in court, according to prosecutors.
"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. "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."
Wall Township Police Chief Sean O’Halloran praised the victims for coming forward.
"I want to commend the courage of those who came forward to report these crimes. It is never easy to speak up, especially when the offender is someone in a position of trust," O’Halloran said.
Rizzitello, who taught English, was hired in 2013 and earned an annual salary of about $62,000 before resigning, according to NJ.com.
In July 2024, Wall Township Public Schools acknowledged the charges and said the district was fully cooperating with law enforcement.