Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office

25 Kirkpatrick Street, 3^rd Floor, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901 (732) 745-3300

*News Release* Date: September 22, 2010

Substitute teacher charged with sex assault

Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan and E.J. McDonald, Acting Chief of the Perth Amboy Police Department, announced today that a substitute science teacher has been charged with sexually assaulting a male student.

Monique Ucelli (DOB 1/2/74) of Sayreville, was charged with sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. She was charged at about 11:40 p.m. on September 21, 2010, after she surrendered at Perth Amboy Police headquarters.

The charges were filed after an investigation by Detective Panagiotis Boulieris of the Perth Amboy Police Department and Investigator Andreea Capraru of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office determined that Ucelli, a substitute science teacher at the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical High School in Perth Amboy, took the student to a motel in Sayreville sometime in March 2010 and had sexual relations with him.

The investigation began after school authorities contacted police last week.

Ucelli remains in custody at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick. Bail has not yet been set.

Ucelli was starting her third year as a substitute teacher at the Perth Amboy school when she was charged. She also worked at the county vocational and technical high school in Woodbridge last year and was employed by the Sayreville Board of Education between May 2006 and September 2006.

Anyone with information on this, or similar incidents, is asked to call Detective Boulieris at the Perth Amboy Police Department at (732) 442-4400, or Investigator Capraru of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office at (732) 745-3600.

As is the case with all criminal defendants, the charges against Ucelli are merely accusations and she is presumed innocent until proven guilty.