Teacher used abortion to cover up her predatory rape of male students

A New Jersey teacher has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after she groomed and raped two of her students, and had at least one abortion to cover up her crimes.

Key Takeaways:

• 37-year-old Julie Rizzitello was an English teacher at Wall Township High School.

• She groomed and raped two students, both of whom were underage when the grooming began.

• She became pregnant by a student at least once and had an abortion, which she told the student about; he was reportedly devastated.

• Rizzitello has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for her crimes.

The Details:

"Behavior of a standard sexual predator"

According to Jersey Shore Online, Rizzitello's first victim was a freshman in high school when she began grooming him in 2017. She invited him to eat lunch alone in her classroom, talked to him frequently, and encouraged him to keep their friendly relationship a secret.

Eventually, she told him she had fantasized about having sex with him.

This victim came forward after hearing about Rizzitello's victimization of another student.

“This is grooming,” Monmouth County Judge Jill Grace O’Malley said during the sentencing hearing as she described what Rizzitello had done. “It is traditional grooming that I see every week here in this courthouse. This is the behavior of a standard sexual predator. You’re no different.”

Over the course of 2017 and 2018, Rizzitello raped the boy most often at her house, in a parking lot, or in a bagel shop her family owned. On his birthday, she raped him without using any contraception, and got pregnant; she then had an abortion.

She told the boy about what she had done, which O'Malley said was even more traumatizing for him.

Julie Rizzitello is a former New Jersey teacher facing multiple sex crimes

“This is the psychological impact of a child who’s a student of yours. 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 who he loved and trusted. That he was sexually abused by this teacher,” O'Malley said. “But now he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that this individual had an abortion and [he] wasn’t comfortable with it.  This is the psychological impact – the devastation.”

In a victim impact statement, the boy — identified only as "B.S." — said he still battles trauma from the abuse, and had to drop out of college. “No kid should have the feeling of sickening anxiety and panic attacks while just trying to get through school,” he said.

"Manipulation and control"

The other victim, identified as "C.J.," was an older student at Rizzitello's school, though he was still a minor when the grooming began. She began raping him in May of 2024 after he turned 18, but while she was still his teacher.

 “Make no mistake about it. He was not an adult," O'Malley said. “Your relationship with CJ was not based on affection and love. It was based on manipulation and control.”

After she was arrested in 2024, she reached out to both victims and asked them to delete any evidence of the abuse from their cell phones.

Zoom In:

Rizzitello's attorney asked the judge to have leniency on her, pointing out that she has two young children, asking the sentence to be reduced to five years. But O'Malley refused, and sentenced her to 10 years in prison. The judge said:

“You didn’t mention once the names BS or CJ. Not once did you mention the victims.

I believe that her remorse is genuine. But her remorse is misplaced. It’s for herself. It’s for her family. It’s for her kids.

This behavior took place for many years. It demonstrates how intentional, methodical, deliberate, and indeed determined the defendant was.”

Rizzitello was sentenced to 10 years in prison for each charge of sexual assault, but the sentences will run concurrently, meaning she will serve a total of 10 years instead of 20. She will also have to register as a sex offender for life.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago is quoted by Fox News as saying,

"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.

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."

The Bottom Line:

Abusers frequently use abortion as a tool to cover up their crimes, as Rizzitello did. And as this case shows, it only added to the victim's trauma and devastation.