New Jersey teacher sued for having sex with male students

Nicole Dufault, 38, (above in her 2014 mugshot) is being sued by the parents of six teenage boys she is accused of sexually assaulting

A New Jersey teacher awaiting trial for having sex with six teenage male students is now being sued by their parents.

Nicole Dufault, 38, was arrested in 2014 for having sex with six boys she taught at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Her defense since then has been that she has a brain injury which made her powerless to stop their advances and that they were the ones who initiated the indecent relationships.

Her contact with the boys was separate, repeated and happened between 2013 and 2014 when they were all between 14 and 15.

On at least one occasion, one watched as she performed oral sex on another and filmed it with his cell phone.

While Dufault, a single mother-of-two, awaits trial, the boys’ parents have filed legal action against her.

Some are demanding up to $1million from her and the school district which they say put their sons at risk by allowing her access to some of the areas on campus where some of the incidents happened during a summer program.

In one case, the parents of two underage boys banded together to file a lawsuit against Dufault and the school district in September 2016.

They are asking for $1million plus lawyers’ fees to compensate the boys who they say were ‘intellectually disabled’ and ‘vulnerable’.

In one of the lawsuits, they describe how Dufault allegedly invited the boys to spend time in her classroom during free periods.

The second was filed by the parents of a former student who was a freshman when he had sex with Dufault in 2014.

In one of the suits, the parents’ lawyer described how she ‘spoke with them about lewd and sexual actions, brushed up again their bodies and touched intimate and personal parts of their bodies in front of other students in the social group.’

Dufault (above at a court hearing in 2016) claims she was powerless to stop the incidents because of a brain injury she said she suffers

The woman was a teacher at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, when she had sex with the boys on campus, sometimes in her car in the parking lot

WHAT IS FRONTAL LOBE SYNDROME? BRAIN CONDITION REVEALED

Frontal lobe syndromes also known as frontotemporal disorders, are the result of damage to nerve cells in parts of the brain called the frontal and temporal lobes.

The frontal lobes, located above the eyes and behind the forehead, are in charge of planning and sequencing, prioritizing, multitasking, and monitoring, correcting errors, and managing emotional responses.

When functioning well, the frontal lobes allow people to avoid inappropriate social behaviors and help make decisions that make sense for a given situation.

When that region of the brain is damaged, people may focus on insignificant details and ignore important aspects of a situation.

The temporal lobes, located below and to the side of each frontal lobe, help people understand words, among other things, and enable them to recognize objects and relate appropriate emotions to objects and events.

When the temporal lobes are misfiring, patients may have difficulty recognizing emotions and responding appropriately to them.

Source: National Institute on Aging

They say she had sex with the boys on campus and in her car.

Some say she sometimes altered their records to allow them to skip class and not get into trouble.

The third lawsuit, filed on behalf of another boy, was lodged in October this year.

It claims that he had sex with Dufault in her car in the high school parking lot. He has not specified how much he wishes to receive.

Dufault’s lawyer Tim Smith maintains that she is the victim and claims she had a brain injury which stopped her from being able to say no to the boys.

Dufault (above in her driver’s license photograph before she was arrested) was getting a divorce around the time she had sex with the boys

‘You had a particularly overly aggressive group of students who came into contact with a teacher who suffered from brain damage,’ Smith told Tap Into.

He did admit there were areas of the school where the incidents took place that were open to them and appeared to try to blame the school for the incidents themselves, claiming they never screened Dufault after a brain surgery

‘You had a program that took place in an isolated part of the school where there was nobody there to control the situation, then you couple that with the fact that the school never screened her post-brain surgery.

‘She also had a home front situation that was troubled with her husband having been arrested and she was taking care of the kids herself.

‘You had a whirlwind of events that led to this victimization of her,’ he added.

A school spokesperson said the allegations against Dufault were ‘disturbing’.

‘The nature of the charges are the most difficult that schools, parents and children would ever have to discuss together,’ the spokesman added.

They declined to discuss the matter of the lawsuits.

‘By law, administrators and Board of Education members are not permitted to publicly discuss personnel or individual student matters, ongoing litigation, or other issues requiring confidentiality.

‘However, we can affirm we believe deeply in our mission to provide our students with a safe and healthy learning environment.

‘We are hopeful that the process will bring closure to this painful chapter in our community’s history,’ she added.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk