Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office

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

 

                                *News Release*         Date: July 27, 2010
 
 

 

 

 


Teacher fined, placed on probation

 

 

          Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan announced today that a South Brunswick High School English teacher has been placed on probation for three years and was fined $1,000 for taking credit cards from two co-workers and running up a bill of more than $600.

 

Jill Zell (DOB 4/19/53) of the Dayton section of South Brunswick also was ordered to resign her teaching post and was banned from holding any public job in the future.

 

The sentence was imposed in New Brunswick at the Middlesex County Courthouse on July 26, 2010, during a hearing before Superior Court Judge Frederick P. DeVesa, who imposed the fine in lieu of restitution at the request of Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Manuel Sameiro. The co-workers who owned the credit cards were not held responsible for the unauthorized bills.

 

Zell was sentenced after she pleaded guilty on April 29, 2010, to two counts of fraudulent use of the credit cards. The plea agreement was reached with Assistant Prosecutor Sameiro.

 

          Zell was arrested and charged on December 22, 2009, following an investigation by Detective Peter Burdick of the South Brunswick Police Department.

 

          The investigation showed Zell took credit cards, one on November 24, 2009, and the other on December 12, 2009, from two teachers and used the cards to make personal purchases at a variety of stores.

 

After the charges were filed, Zell was suspended with pay, and then was suspended without pay after she pleaded guilty.