Amanda Crafts

Introduction

Amanda Crafts, a 35-year-old computer teacher at Middle Township Middle School in Cape May County, New Jersey, was arrested and charged after a man told police she held him down in a Harrah’s Resort hotel room while another woman performed a sex act on him and used his own face to unlock his phone, transferring $1,250 from his Apple Pay account. Identified in court as a teacher and removed from her district’s payroll on October 19, Crafts says she was in the room “strictly to party” and had no idea any prostitution or theft was planned.

Background Information

Crafts had taught computer classes at Middle Township Middle School since 2016, according to her LinkedIn profile, and the school’s website listed “Amanda Crafts, computers” under its Special Area Departments. The Wildwood resident is a mother of four, per her attorneys and her own statements in court, where she said she had never been arrested before. Her co-defendant, Veda Engel, 23, of Cape May, works at a commercial cleaning company in Ocean City, her attorney said, and was previously charged with prostitution in December 2025.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Arrested and charged; not tried. The second-degree theft and conspiracy-to-commit-robbery counts against Crafts are affidavit and charging-document allegations she has not been tried on. She denies holding the man down or knowing any prostitution was planned, and she is presumed innocent.

According to the affidavits of probable cause reported by Breaking AC, the man met Engel and Crafts at a Caesars Atlantic City hotel bar and exchanged numbers with Engel, who later called and invited him to a hotel room at Harrah’s Resort. Atlantic City police said officers responded to Harrah’s at 1:31 a.m. on October 9, 2026, after the man reported what had happened. Once inside, the man told investigators, the two women stripped him naked and physically restrained him to the bed, where Engel performed a sex act before abruptly stopping and saying, “That’s what you get for $1,250.” Crafts then held him down, the man said, while Engel held his iPhone up to his face so its facial-recognition feature would unlock, and made four separate Apple Pay transfers totaling $1,250 to her own account. The detective who wrote the affidavits recorded the man’s statement that the transfers “were made without his consent in exchange for sexual acts.”

Each woman is charged with second-degree counts of theft and conspiracy to commit robbery for the October 9 incident; Atlantic City police described the counts as robbery and conspiracy. Engel, who allegedly also engaged in prostitution, faces an additional disorderly-persons prostitution charge.

Crafts’s account, through her attorney Charles Peruto Jr., is that she met Engel and the man at Caesars that same night and believed they were heading to the Harrah’s room to keep the party going — not that any cash-for-sex arrangement existed. “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,” Peruto told The Post, adding that she is “mortified.” He suggested the man called police only because his paid hour ended early: “Maybe the prostitute took advantage of him but my client had nothing to do with it.” At her first appearance on October 10, a video hearing from the Atlantic County Justice Facility, Crafts told Judge Timothy Maguire: “I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been arrested before. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Public Reaction and Consequences

The district learned the details the way the public did: Breaking AC reported on October 16 that the woman charged in the “sex-related robbery” had identified herself in court as a teacher — “You’re a teacher?” Judge Christine Smith asked at the detention hearing, where Crafts also pressed to know whether she could return to work and said she would “have to make union contact tomorrow when I get released.”

Superintendent Stephanie DeRose first wrote to families to confirm an unnamed teacher’s arrest, stressing that the charges “do not involve any alleged threat, inappropriate behavior, or misconduct occurring within our schools or involving our students.” A follow-up letter on October 19 announced that the teacher was “no longer employed by the district,” adding, “The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priority,” while citing employee-privacy limits on what could be shared about the criminal case. The New York Post carried the story nationally on October 24.

Current Status

Crafts and Engel each spent six days at the Atlantic County Justice Facility and were released on October 15, according to state records reported by The Post. At the detention hearing, Judge Christine Smith’s conditions barred the two women from contacting each other or the alleged victim and required court check-ins every other week and continued employment. Neither has been tried, and no trial date had been reported as of October 24, 2026. Engel, separately, was charged with prostitution in December 2025 after allegedly offering sex for $1,000 to an undercover New Jersey State Police detective at the Borgata hotel casino; she was released on a summons in that earlier case.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The firing is the concrete consequence so far, arriving ten days after the arrest and before any trial: a teacher who had been at the school since 2016 was removed from the district over allegations it says never touched the school or its students. The national tabloid cycle has attached Crafts’s name, photo and her “strictly to party” defense to the story of the alleged casino-room robbery, and her second-degree charges remain to be proven. In court her immediate concerns were practical — four children, school runs, a union phone call — while her attorney insisted she “had nothing to do with it.”

Sources

• New York Post, “NJ teacher busted in alleged Atlantic City prostitution scam,” October 24, 2026 — source
• Breaking AC, “Two Cape women accused of robbing man after sex act in A.C. casino hotel room,” October 16, 2026 — source
• Breaking AC, “Middle Township teacher charged in sex-related robbery ’no longer employed’,” October 19, 2026 — source
• Daily Voice, “NJ Teacher Amanda Crafts Fired After Robbery Arrest In AC,” October 19, 2026 — source
• X (@nypost), “NJ middle school teacher busted in prostitution scam at Atlantic City casino,” October 24, 2026 — source