OCEAN GATE – More accusations are being made against Ocean Gate Borough’s school superintendent, claiming that he violated a girl over a decade ago when she was just 8 years old.
The second accuser filed a notice of tort against the district and Superintendent of Schools Frank B. Vanalesti, 63, of Little Egg Harbor, on June 21. Vanalesti stands accused of forcing the girl to expose her breasts in order to see a cut on her chest in July 2018, when the former student was just 8 years old.
According to the notice, at the time of the incident, the former student suffered a minor cut on the left side of her chest near her breasts and went to see a school nurse, who treated the cut.
In the days following, Vanalesti called the student into his office “so he could ‘inspect’ the cut,” the notice read. Vanalesti then made the girl lift her shirt, exposing her breasts, to see the cut. “Principal Vanalesti then proceeded to give (the student) a hug and tell her that he was glad she was okay,” stated the notice.
Vanalesti was the principal of the Ocean Gate Public School at the time of this incident.
The notice claims that the student “did not understand why he needed to see the cut, as it had been inspected by the school nurse.”
School district attorney Christopher Supsie has denied this new accusation as well as those made back in June by Vanalesti’s first accuser, identified only by her initials, K.N.
On June 6, a notice of tort claim was filed against Vanalesti, accusing him of sexually abusing a minor over a four year period. The notice claimed that he his position to gain the trust of the minor and her mother in order to sexually abuse the minor between 2011 and 2015.
The notice, filed by Toms River Attorney Robert R. Fuggi Jr., named Vanalesti, Ocean Gate School District, Ocean Gate Public School and Ocean Gate Board of Education as responsible.
According to the notice, Vanalesti was living with the mother and child at their residence in Ocean Gate at the time.
This first accuser has since filed a federal lawsuit against Vanalesti as of Wednesday. The lawsuit states that Vanalesti was living with the mother and daughter when the girl told her mother that he touched her chest, made her take her clothes off and sit on his lap. The mother kicked Vanalesti out of the house but he later convinced her that he had not molested her daughter and he was allowed to move back in, according to the suit.
The lawsuit also states that during that four-year period, Vanalesti would watch the young girl shower or come into the bathroom while she was in there. It claims that Vanalesti molested and vaginally raped her.
This more recent notice filed by a second accuser also names as possible lawsuit defendants the Ocean Gate School District, Ocean Gate Public School and Ocean Gate School Board of Education.
Vanalesti has worked for the Ocean Gate district since 2006. Prior to this, he worked as a superintendent in Little Egg Harbor and principal in the Asbury Park School District.
Vanalesti left Little Egg Harbor after two years after six affirmative action complaints were filed against him. The details of the complaints are not known.
Aside from the notice of tort claim and lawsuit recently filed, there are no records of criminal charges filed against Vanalesti ranging outside of traffic violations.
