A Delsea Regional High School teacher has been charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old Delsea Regional female student.
Daniel L. Harvey Sr. is the second local high school teacher in the last two months to be accused by police of carrying on a sexual relationship with a teenage student.
The 41-year-old Pilesgrove Township man was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree sexual assault, second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree official misconduct, for incidents that allegedly took place in Vineland beginning in October 2008, according to Assistant Prosecutor Dara Paley.
"We have allegations that this defendant, who is a school teacher, engaged in sexual relations with a 17-year-old student. This defendant breached the trust that the community placed in him," she said in court Thursday.
Harvey, who teaches computers at Delsea Regional High School, pleaded not guilty to his charges during an initial court appearance Thursday afternoon, at which time Superior Court Judge Gary Wodlinger reduced his bail from $350,000 to $175,000 cash or bond.
Wodlinger, a family court judge, handled Thursday's proceeding in the absence of Cumberland County's three Superior Court criminal court judges.
The reduction in bail was influenced by the appearance of Harvey's mother at the court hearing and statements by Harvey's defense attorney, Ned Rogovoy, who brought his client a suit to wear in court rather than appear in the standard orange county jail uniform.
Wodlinger declined to lift an order forbidding unsupervised contact between Harvey and his minor children.
Harvey has three children with his wife, with whom he is currently involved in divorce proceedings, according to Rogovoy.
While Rogovoy argued that there have been no allegations of misconduct between his client and his client's children, Paley said that the safety of his children is still an issue.
"Although we may believe that there is no problem with the children of the marriage and while we may think that there is no problem with the children of the marriage, we are not certain that there are no problems with the children of the marriage," she said.
Sexual assault carries a potential 10-year prison sentence, with mandatory 85 percent to be served before parole.
Other charges could be forthcoming for more incidents involving the same victim in other counties, said Assistant Prosecutor John Jesperson, who was present at Thursday's court proceeding, but all charges will be handled in Cumberland County.
This latest case of alleged sexual assault follows a case in June in which a Millville high school teacher was accused of sexual assault involving two female students.
Also, in April, a 23-year-old teacher's aide at Veterans Memorial Middle School, in Vineland, was arrested and charged with kissing a 14-year-old student and sending him nude and suggestive photographs of herself.
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http://www.nj.com/cumberland/index.ssf/2009/07/vineland_police_charge_delsea.html
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