NJ high school teacher had 2 years of sexual encounters with girl, cops say

HADDON — A Cherokee High School teacher was charged with sexually assaulting a female student on multiple occasions in 2016 and 2017.

Latin teacher Brantley Cesanek, 30, was arrested at his township home on Tuesday by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and is being held at the Camden County Correctional Facility pending a pretrial detention hearing.

Prosecutors in Camden and Burlington counties said Cesanek had an "ongoing sexual relationship" with the student. He is also charged with endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct, a charge that carries a mandatory prison sentence.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Haddon Municipal Court, the student provided an audio tape statement to police describing having vaginal sex and fellatio with the teacher.

Police said the intimate encounters occurred on numerous occasions during her junior and senior years, including at least twice at his home, which he moved into in August 2017.

After the arrest, Principal Donna Charlesworth sent an email to parents about "allegations of certain conduct by a Cherokee High School staff member which were brought to the attention of the administration Tuesday." She noted the incident involved a former student.

The principal said that Cesanek was immediately banned from school grounds and events.

Cherokee is one of four high schools in the Lenape Regional High School District and serves students from Eveham, Medford Lakes, Medford, Mount Laurel, Shamong, Southampton, Tabernacle and Woodland. It had an enrollment of nearly 2,200 as of the 2015-16 school year.

New Jersey 101.5 did not know Wednesday whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Online teacher reviews posted by students were overwhelmingly effusive.

On Facebook, his profile quotes from a Latin poem: "Oh wretches, come learn the causes of things ..."

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNJ