EVESHAM (NJ)
NJ Advance Media - nj.com [Iselin NJ]
January 29, 2026
By Anthony G. Attrino
A Burlington County woman has filed a lawsuit against the Lenape Regional High School District, claiming teachers and administrators failed to protect her from a teacher’s alleged sexual abuse.
The woman claims in court papers she was 14 when Brantley Cesanek, her Latin teacher, began grooming her when she was a student in 2014 at Cherokee High School in Marlton.
“This case exposes the horrific experience of a minor student who was abused for years by a teacher and the school system that failed to protect that student,” the victim’s attorney, Ashley Garland, an associate at Anapol Weiss, states in a lawsuit filed Jan. 14 in New Jersey Superior Court.
The teacher allegedly bought the student coffee and breakfast, removed her from school grounds for sex at his home, groped her in his classroom and wrote her excessive hall passes when she was late for her other classes, the suit claims.
Cesanek was arrested in the fall of 2018 and charged with sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct.
He pleaded guilty the following year to second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and was sentenced to five years in prison. State prison records show Cesanek is no longer incarcerated.
Public records show the state revoked Cesanek’s teaching certificate after his guilty plea. Phone numbers listed in Cesanek’s name were not in working order on Wednesday.
The lawsuit claims other teachers were aware Cesanek was having an inappropriate relationship with his student but did not report their suspicions to administrators or police.
The Lenape Regional High School District allegedly failed to live up to its mission statement to “develop physically and emotionally healthy students,” the lawsuit claims.
“Defendants were obligated to protect (the victim) from being sexually abused and/or assaulted by their employees; they failed to do so,” the lawsuit states.
District officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit claims Cesanek targeted the girl after she joined the school’s Latin Club.
“The Latin Club and program at the school were small, which provided unrestricted access for Defendant Cesanek to tend to and groom (the victim),” the suit states.
The suit states Cesanek repeatedly told the girl she was beautiful, wrote her love letters and made her feel special “to blur appropriate boundaries between teacher and student.”
He told the girl about his personal life and said he could not wait for her to turn 18 so they could have a sexual relationship, the suit claims.
When she was 15, the teacher showered the girl with “personalized, expensive gifts” that included a professional soccer jersey.
He also allowed her to eat lunch in his classroom where they were alone together and he would pass her “handwritten love letters,” the suit claims.
The suit claims Cesanek would invite the victim out to eat, removing her from school property in his vehicle – “departures that should have required parent permission and administrative approval but were either never monitored or affirmatively permitted by the school,” the suit claims.
“This was not romance – this was a grown man declaring his ‘love’ to a child he was systematically grooming for sexual abuse, grooming that occurred entirely on school property during school hours with the school’s implicit permission,” the suit alleges.
The sexual abuse began toward the end of the student’s sophomore year and occured on the school’s premises, according to the complaint. It continued into her junior year, as well, but by her senior year he began stalking her, she claims. That continued even as she left for college — Cesanek sent letters to her dorm and showed up “unannounced, in a final act of stalking,” the suit claims.
While the girl was away at college, her mother found a bag filled with love notes and “an excessive amount of hall passes” that Cesanek had written for her, according to the suit.
“The sheer volume of hall passes – physical documentation the school generated and should have tracked – evidenced the pattern the school should have detected years earlier,” the suit states.
The complaint references other alleged instances of sexual abuse by staff in the district, including Eric T. Howell, a teacher at Lenape High School, who admitted taking videos up the skirts of students.
Howell pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child in 2019 and was sentenced to five years in prison.
The lawsuit alleges the district and its employees were vicariously liable for its “systemic failures” in supervising Cesanek and in protecting the student.
The district is also accused of negligent hiring, supervision and retention.
Cesanek is named as a defendant, along with the district. He’s accused of assault and battery and “atrocious acts of sexual abuse” that led to the victim suffering a loss of self-esteem, depression, nightmares and stress.