A New Jersey English teacher who sexually abused two teenage students — falling pregnant by one after convincing him to have unprotected sex — has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Julie Rizzitello, 37, told her young victim she was carrying his child, only to later inform him she had terminated the pregnancy. He had not wanted her to go through with the abortion.

Grooming began when boy was a freshman

Rizzitello, who taught at Wall Township High School, began grooming her first victim in 2017 when he was a freshman. She told the boy she dreamed of sleeping with him, a fantasy that became reality on multiple occasions across 2017 and 2018. She convinced him to have unprotected sex on his birthday, which resulted in her becoming pregnant.

Monmouth County Judge Jill Grace O’Malley set out the full scale of psychological damage inflicted on the teenager at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing.

“Not only does he have to deal with the fact that he’s groomed throughout his entire high school years, that he was preyed upon by his teacher who he loved and trusted … that he was sexually abused by this teacher,” the judge told the court, according to Jersey Shore Online.

“But now he’s struggling to come to terms with the fact that this individual had an abortion and [he] wasn’t comfortable with it. This is the psychological impact — the devastation.”

Judge brands teacher a sexual predator

Rizzitello pleaded guilty last year to two counts of second-degree sexual assault, having abused each victim for months at a time, prosecutors said. A second victim, aged 18, was targeted in early 2024.

Prosecutors said abuse took place at her home, in parking lots and at her family-owned bagel shop, where both victims were employed.

When the teacher kept interrupting to deny being a groomer, Judge O’Malley told her: “Stop shaking your head … These are the facts.”

The judge was unsparing in her assessment, telling Rizzitello, according to Jersey Shore Online: “This is grooming. It is traditional grooming that I see every week here in this courthouse. This is the behavior of a standard sexual predator. You’re no different.”

Evidence destruction attempted after arrest

After her July 2024 arrest, prosecutors said she reached out to both victims urging them to destroy phone and device evidence.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said in a statement: “These crimes were not isolated incidents constituting moments of poor judgment; they were textbook cases of grooming, involving a defendant who repeatedly leveraged tactics of isolation, manipulation, and control for the sake of her own selfish purposes.

“The egregious nature of the conduct was further compounded by the plain fact that the emotional and psychological harm she inflicted came at the expense of two of the very same young minds she had been entrusted to develop and nurture.”