Maplewood, New Jersey: Former Columbia High School Language Arts teacher Nicole Dufault, of Caldwell, continues to face dozens of charges in connection with the alleged sexual assaults in 2013 and 2014 of six students. This week, her attorney, Timothy Smith, of Caruso Smith Picini in Fairfield, said in a statement that frontal lobe syndrome "has rendered her (Dufault) defenseless to over-aggressive behavior, and that is exactly what she was exposed to". Dufault was reportedly diagnosed with the syndrome after undergoing brain surgery at a local hospital.
When she was still teaching, Dufault told her students that she only felt pain as a result of her illness during rainfall, and that doctors recommended that she move to Arizona. Dufault also told students in the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year that she planned to file a lawsuit against the hospital where she underwent brain surgery.
"We continue to prepare for trial so our juvenile victims may find the justice they are seeking", said Gina Iosim of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in a statement responding to Smith's comments.
All of the alleged victims were under 18 at the time of the incidents.
Dufault was released from the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark in late October, 2014 on $500,000 bail.
Above: Detectives searched Dufault's classroom after her arrest in September, 2014
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