A New Jersey high school teacher has been indicted on 40 counts of aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child after she allegedly carried out sexual relationships with six students.
Nicole Dufault, a language arts teacher at Columbia High School in Maplewood, allegedly engaged in sexual behavior with the male students, aged 13 to 14, between 2013 and 2014. Police say some of the encounters occurred on the school's campus and in Dufault's car.
Among the evidence used to charge Dufault, Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Gina Iosim told NJ.com, is a video of Dufault performing oral sex on a student in the presence of another.
"If the video depicts certain things happening…that doesn't mean that my client's not innocent," Dufault's attorney Timothy Smith told NJ.com in September. "People are victimized by juveniles all the time."
Dufault, 35, was arrested by police last September for her alleged involvement with five students; by the time the case was presented to a grand jury, a sixth student had been discovered. She's been released on bail. Her two young children, CBS New York reports, have been placed in state custody; her husband reportedly left her last year.
[Image via CBS New York]
