A former Wall Township high school teacher who admitted to grooming and sexually assaulting two students — including encounters at her family’s bagel shop — has been sentenced to 10 years in state prison, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Julie Rizzitello, 37, was sentenced in Monmouth County Superior Court. Judge Jill G. O’Malley ordered that she serve a decade behind bars, followed by lifetime parole supervision. She must register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, have no contact with the victims, and permanently forfeit her teaching position.
Rizzitello had pleaded guilty in September to charges stemming from relationships with two former students.
According to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, the sexual acts occurred at multiple locations, including Rizzitello’s home in Brick Township, inside a vehicle in a Wall Township parking lot, and at a Belmar bagel shop owned by her family. Prosecutors said both victims worked at the shop at her suggestion.
An investigation conducted by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Bureau and the Wall Township Police Department found that Rizzitello met one victim when he was a freshman and the other when he was a junior at Wall High School, where she taught English. Authorities said she cultivated personal relationships with both teens, asked to spend time alone with them, and gradually escalated those interactions into sexual activity over a period of months.
Police arrested Rizzitello without incident in July 2024 after a district employee alerted authorities to her relationship with a student. According to court documents cited by NJ.com and the Coast Star, incidents involving one victim took place in May and June 2024, after he had turned 18. Investigators said the two had sexual contact in his car in Brick and met at other locations. Officials also alleged she sent him nude photographs.
After her arrest, a second victim came forward, telling investigators that he and Rizzitello had intercourse in November 2017 and January 2018 at her residence in Brick Township when he was 17 years old. Photographs and text messages corroborated his account, according to affidavits of probable cause.
Authorities further alleged that while the investigation was ongoing, Rizzitello contacted both victims and asked them to delete evidence from their electronic devices.
In sentencing, Judge O’Malley denied a defense request to reduce the prison term to five years, referencing a victim impact statement presented in court.
“These crimes were not isolated incidents constituting moments of poor judgment; they were textbook cases of grooming,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said. He emphasized that Rizzitello leveraged isolation and manipulation against “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, noting the difficulty of reporting abuse by someone in a position of authority.
