Teacher’s aide sexually assaulted me and schools did nothing to stop it, former student says in suit

The Star Ledger ^ | Anthony G. Attrino

[Coleus]

Philip Cerone, 29, of Maywood, is a former teacher's aide serving probation for criminal sexual contact. The victim is suing Cerone and two districts where he worked.Bergen County Prosecutor's Office

A 20-year-old woman has sued two school districts in Bergen County claiming she was sexually assaulted by a teacher’s aide and officials at two schools did nothing to intervene. The woman claims Philip Cerone, of Maywood, carried on an illegal relationship with her from April 2016 to October 2017 while she was a student at Hackensack High School and a volunteer under Cerone’s supervision at South Hackensack Memorial School Summer Camp. The woman was a minor at the time of the assault.

School officials did nothing to prevent her from being alone with Cerone, even though they knew about the activity, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Superior Court in Bergen County. Cerone, 29, pleaded guilty last year to fourth-degree criminal sexual contact and was sentenced to five years’ probation, according to court documents.

He also resigned from his $25,470-a-year teacher’s aide job in the South Hackensack district and the state later revoked his certification. The lawsuit claims two teachers and five others knew or should have known that an inappropriate relationship existed between the former student and Cerone.

[Coleus]

Another abuse case in NJ

[MHGinTN]

from April 2016 to October 2017 ... that sounds like it was consensual, unless it was ONE assault lasting 23 months.

[Secret Agent Man]

Regret isn’t rape

Just have him identify as a woman, he’ll get a slap on the wrist like all the other female rapists in the schools.

[MHGinTN]

‘Regret isn’t rape’ that is deep, dude, and so very to the point. It will probably get Harvey an acquittal. And by the way, Epstein and Haney and mark Minnie did not kill themselves.

[Secret Agent Man]

well a 20-month consentual relationship that ends whether she wanted it to or not, isn’t rape.

[chajin]

Off topic, but he looks like the struggling actor in the Liberty Mutual commercial.

On topic, the problem with all of this is that we can’t have it both ways. If a 16yo supposedly isn’t doing anything wrong when having sex with another 16yo, then it is difficult to argue that it is wrong if one of the partners is older. Either it is wrong because teenage sex is wrong, or not.

Since as a society we have given up on the idea of sex being a benefit of marriage and replaced that with the idea of sex as a right to be exercised after puberty, it becomes difficult to thread the needle between the 16yo who wants to have sex with a classmate and the 16yo who wants to have sex with an aide. Put more simply, he acted wrongly, not because his partner was 16, but because his partner wasn’t his wife.

[CurlyDave]

I think the real deal here is that there is a government entity with a fat wallet who can pay up.

[SaraJohnson]

We will find public school children having been abused by staff far into the future. They have crossed the line and are grooming children for sex.

[Secret Agent Man]

They wouldn’t be worried about paying up if it was a male student.

[moovova]

Who needs a house out in Hackensack...

[MortMan]

Actually, 20 months of sex with an underage girl is rape, statutorily.

The fact that her volunteer position reported to him also complicates things.

If she was of age, and if they were not in the school under a subordinate/leader relationship, then regret of a consensual encounter or several is, indeed, not rape.