Clifton teacher charged with sexual assault sentenced to jail, probation

The lapses in judgment she has shown in her relationships do not define her, she said. “Breaking the rules always made me uncomfortable,” she said. “This was completely out-of-character.”

Woodland Park defense attorney Ronald Ricci agreed. “I’ve been doing this for 17 years,” he said. “Good people make terrible mistakes, sometimes. And that’s what happened here.”

He said Leone is a woman who struggled to put herself through college, who went on to become a popular teacher and who always lived a law-abiding life. “Ms. Leone was not a person attracted to juveniles,” he said, adding that this isolated incident was a manifestation of other deep-seated problems. “She had very low self-esteem,” Ricci said. “She made a tragic, tragic mistake.”

Passaic County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Joseph Del Russo said it was hard to understand how someone so otherwise responsible and intelligent as Leone could have been so stupid as to risk her career and reputation on such a bad impulse.

“I am very conflicted by what’s happening today,” he said. “This was someone during Hurricane Katrina that went down there and helped other people,” Del Russo said, noting press coverage of her case has humiliated her and her family and that the story has gone international on the Internet.

“Some people say, ‘It’s kind of different for boys,’” he continued. “Well, it’s not kind of different for boys. Because ‘boys’ is the operative word.”

The victim’s mother, who is not being identified to protect a sex abuse victim’s anonymity, said some give her son “the high five,” others ridicule him. In the end, it all hurts. “He’s my son. If it hurts him, it hurts me,” she said.