A former New Jersey high school teacher accused of
sexual misconduct with six teenage boys is now the focus of three
lawsuits filed against her and the school district she was once employed
at.
Nicole Dufault, 38, who was arrested
in July 2014, is named in the civil suits along with South Orange
Maplewood School District, Tap Into
reported. Dufault, a former language arts teacher at Columbia High
School in Maplewood, N.J., for about nine years, was accused of sexually
assaulting up to six male students. Dufault, of Bloomfield, was
awaiting trial on the criminal charges.
Nicole Dufault was accused of having inappropriate relationships with up to six underage males.
(Essex County Correctional Facility)
The lawsuits, all filed in the last 15 months, seek
“damages for Dufault’s alleged actions and claims she coerced the
students into performing oral sex, pressured them due to her authority
as a teacher and caused emotional distress and psychological injury,”
Tap Into reported.
The suit also accused the school of keeping areas of
the school open and unsupervised during a summer 2013 program when the
sexual acts between the students and Dufault occurred. The suit accused
the school of not being a safe environment for students.
A Sept. 30, 2016 lawsuit, which was filed by the
parents of two students, sought $1 million in “compensatory and punitive
damages” and court and legal fees. The students in connection with the
lawsuit were reportedly victims of Dufault. The suit claims the students
were both “intellectually disabled” with “social communication
difficulties” and “were vulnerable to sexual harassment.”
The parents claimed in the suit Dufault had sex and
oral sex with the two students and the school district ignored the
complaints made against the educator.
Another lawsuit, filed by a third student in Sept.
2016, accuses Dufault of sexual abuse that began when he was a freshman
in 2014. The suit claimed Dufault invited students to “hang out” in her
classroom during free periods.
Nicole Dufault, a former high school teacher, is in the middle
of three lawsuits filed against her and the school district after she
was accused of sexual misconduct with some six boys.
(Essex County New Jersey Prosecutor's Office )
The suit stated Dufault “spoke with them about lewd and
sexual actions, brushed up again their bodies and touched intimate and
personal parts of their bodies in front of other students in the social
group.” The suit also alleged the sexual relations between the educator
and students were filmed. The suit blamed the school district for its
failure to supervise the teacher’s classroom.
The last lawsuit was filed by a fourth student in
October 2017. No damages were sought but it accused Dufault of sexually
abusing the male student. The victim claimed Dufault abused him in the
summer of 2013 during “Bridge Program” and said the acts occurred in the
teacher’s car and different locations around the school.
Tim Smith, Dufault’s attorney, told Tap Into the educator suffered from “frontal lobe syndrome” and was a victim herself.
“You had a particularly overly aggressive group of
students who came into contact with a teacher who suffered from brain
damage,” Smith said.
The attorney agreed the school was not properly supervised, however.
“You had a program that took place in an isolated part
of the school where there was nobody there to control the situation,
then you couple that with the fact that the school never screened her
post-brain surgery,” Smith said. “She also had a home front situation
that was troubled with her husband having been arrested and she was
taking care of the kids herself. You had a whirlwind of events that led
to this victimization of her.”
Dufault, a mother of two, filed for divorce from Drew
Dufault in July 2013, around the time the alleged inappropriate
incidents occurred, NJ.com reported. Her ex-husband was arrested in 2015 for burglary and drug offenses.
Nicole Dufault is a divorced mother of two.
(Robert Sciarrino / NJ Advance / Barcroft Media)
Suzanne Turner, a spokeswoman for the school district, called the allegations “deeply disturbing.”
“The allegations are deeply disturbing. The nature of
the charges are the most difficult that schools, parents and children
would ever have to discuss together,” Turner wrote in a statement.
“By law, administrators and Board of Education members
are not permitted to publicly discuss personnel or individual student
matters, ongoing litigation, or other issues requiring confidentiality.
However, we can affirm we believe deeply in our mission to provide our
students with a safe and healthy learning environment. We are hopeful
that the process will bring closure to this painful chapter in our
community’s history," the statement concluded.
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