Ex-teacher, coach to be tried for sex assault

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BY SUE MORGAN Staff Writer

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

WEST LONG BRANCH — A former Shore Regional High School teacher and coach will go on trial late next month on charges related to the aggravated sexual assault of a minor.

William O’Leary, 35, of Manasquan, who was fired from both of his positions at the high school in September 2004 after district officials learned he had allegedly engaged in a physical relationship with a female student, rejected a plea bargain offered by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office in a Freehold courtroom on Dec. 5.

O’Leary, who has maintained that he is not guilty, turned down the offer to plead guilty to aggravated sexual assault in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence, according to Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin.

State Superior Court Judge Patricia Del Bueno Cleary told O’Leary that he would have to serve 85 percent of the sentence under the plea offer, Valentin confirmed.

However, O’Leary, represented by West Long Branch attorney Charles J. Uliano, instead chose to go to trial rather than admit to the charges, the prosecutor said.

“He is still presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Valentin said in a telephone interview. “We look forward to presenting the evidence to a jury.”

Cleary scheduled O’Leary’s trial — expected to last two to three weeks — for Jan. 30, Valentin said.

Uliano, who has also publicly stated that O’Leary is not guilty, continues to stand by his client.

“He rejects all pleas because he’s not guilty,” Uliano said in a telephone interview. “He will be vindicated when this matter is tried.”

O’Leary, who began teaching physical education and basic skills math, and coaching boys baseball, basketball and football, at Shore Regional in September 2001, was not tenured at the time of his firing, Uliano said.

In March, O’Leary was indicted by a Monmouth County grand jury on seven counts related to the charges including aggravated sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual contact and child endangerment.

The alleged incidents occurred on various dates between August 2001 and Dec. 6, 2003, when the victim was between 14 and 16 years old, according to documents previously released by the Prosecutor’s Office.

O’Leary was indicted on one first-degree charge of aggravated sexual assault, according to a copy of the indictment received from the Prosecutor’s Office. He was also indicted on two counts of sexual assault, one count each of aggravated criminal sexual contact and child endangerment, and two counts of criminal sexual contact.

O’Leary first met the victim, whose identity has not been revealed by authorities, when she was an eighth-grader at the Frank Antonides School in West Long Branch, where the ex-teacher was then employed, county prosecutors have said.

After the teen graduated and entered ninth grade at Shore Regional High School, O’Leary asked the West Long Branch Board of Education for a transfer to the teaching and coaching positions at the high school, where he maintained contact with the victim, according to prosecutors.

As a high school student, the victim worked for O’Leary at two swim clubs, one in Matawan and the other in Freehold Township, that he managed during the summers, authorities stated.

Some of the alleged sexual contact took place at those two swim clubs, as well as in Howell and Manasquan, prosecutors have said. West Long Branch police arrested O’Leary in September 2004 after learning from the girl’s parents of the alleged relationship between the teacher and the teenager.