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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (Gambling911.com) - A Cape May County middle school computer teacher has been fired as she faces second-degree theft and conspiracy to commit robbery following an October 9 encounter at the Atlantic City casino.
Amanda Crafts, 35, and Veda Engel, 23, are accused of stealing $1,250 from a man they met at the hotel bar of Caesar’s Atlantic City and brought back to their Harrah's Atlantic City casino hotel room.
Engel, who was previously charged with prostitution a few months earlier, allegedly told the man he would only receive oral sex for the $1,250.
The John called cops to the room only after he prematurely ejaculated and Engel abruptly ended the session before his one hour session had expired.
“Amanda Crafts is highly intelligent and wouldn’t participate in anything like that. She was in the room and wanted to leave and didn’t even realize it was a prostitution thing,” her attorney Charles Peruto Jr. told The Post, adding, “She is mortified.”
Crafts was there “strictly to party” and not to participate in any prostitution or scam, her attorney asserted.
“Maybe the prostitute took advantage of him but my client had nothing to do with it,” the lawyer said.
But the victim told an entirely different story. He accused the middle school teacher of holding him down while Engel used his phone’s facial recognition technology and quickly made four Apple Pay transactions to her own account.
The women have since been released and are now awaiting trial, and they both need to comply with biweekly court check-ins.
Crafts had been employed as a teacher at the Middle Township Middle School in Cape May since 2016.
Not any more.
The school announced that Crafts was “no longer employed by the district,” in a letter to families and staff on Oct. 19.
“The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priority,” Stephanie DeRose, Superintendent of Schools in Middle Township Public Schools, wrote in the letter.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
