No prison for NJ teacher who hid school coach’s sexual abuse

🚨 A former NJ teacher has been sentenced for not reporting a sexual relationship between a student and coach

🚨 The teacher will not spend a day in prison

🚨 The victim's family accuses her of encouraging the illicit affair in a lawsuit

FRANKLIN (Somerset) — A former Central Jersey private school teacher will not face any time in prison despite doing nothing to stop a coach at the school from grooming a student for a sexual relationship.

Ranait Griff, 30, of South Orange pleaded guilty to a disorderly persons charge for failure to report child abuse in May. She was sentenced last week to one year of probation. Griff can also no longer coach or teach anyone under the age of 18 for the rest of her life.

According to the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, Griff knew about a sexual relationship between a 17-year-old female student at Rutgers Preparatory School in Franklin and Matthew Rennie, 29, of East Amwell but did not report it to authorities. Griff and Rennie were both teachers and coaches at the school.

Prosecutors said the relationship began in July 2021 and lasted through that September until it was reported to Franklin police.

Rennie pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault and third-degree child endangerment last year. He was sentenced to four years in state prison this past March.

🚨 Griff encouraged sexual relationship & called it 'adorable,' lawsuit says

A lawsuit filed in Somerset County Superior Court in January claims that Griff knew about Rennie's attempts to pursue the student and even encouraged them to become a couple.

In text messages, Griff told the teenage girl that she and Rennie were "seriously adorable" together and asked about their physical relationship, according to the suit. It accuses her of grooming the victim, who first met Rennie when she was a freshman in 2018, and normalizing the abuse.

This helped lead to Rennie and the victim engaging in sex acts at his home, at local parks, in his car, and in his classroom at the school, the suit stated.

The suit also accuses Griff of sexually abusing another minor student at the private school. However, no other details on the matter were provided in the suit and prosecutors have not filed any criminal charges related to the accusation.

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