Julie Tichon

Introduction

Julie Tichon is a former guidance counselor at YULA Boys High School, a Modern Orthodox Jewish yeshiva high school in West Los Angeles, whose career ended in May 2024 when two students reported having separate sexual relationships with her. The school fired her and referred the matter to the Los Angeles Police Department, and she was arrested that August and charged with felony sex crimes involving a 16-year-old student. In May 2026 she pleaded no contest to two felony counts, and weeks later she was sentenced to two years of probation with no jail time, along with a ten-year requirement to register as a sex offender. The sentence, and the anguish her victim’s family voiced in court, made her case a landmark abuse scandal in Los Angeles’ Orthodox Jewish community.

Background Information

Tichon worked at YULA — the Yeshiva University High School of Los Angeles — where the Forward describes her as the boys’ division’s director of academic support, a role that gave her routine, trusted access to students. She was 37 when she was arrested in August 2024 and 38 at the time of her sentencing. Reporting from the sentencing described personal losses on both sides of the case: the victim’s mother had died unexpectedly in 2023, and Tichon had lost a brother to suicide around the same period. The victim’s family told the court the crime rattled the “small religious community” where they lived.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Note on posture: Tichon’s case is adjudicated. The charges were resolved by her May 7, 2026 no-contest pleas, which function as convictions, and she has been sentenced; statements from the family and from Tichon are quoted as reported, and the conduct she admitted by plea is a matter of court record.

The controversy began in May 2024, when two students at YULA Boys High School reported having separate sexual relationships with Tichon; the school fired her and referred the matter to police. Per the LAPD, the charged crimes occurred between February and March 2024 and involved a 16-year-old boy. Tichon was arrested on August 29, 2024, and charged with three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor more than three years younger and one count of oral copulation with a person under 18 — offenses carrying up to five years in prison. Det. Russ Hess of the LAPD said that rather than advising the students, “she was abusing them.”

On May 7, 2026, Tichon pleaded no contest to one count of felony sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of felony oral copulation with a minor; in exchange, the court dismissed the two remaining counts, also felonies. She had faced up to five years in custody.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The reckoning played out on May 28, 2026, when Tichon appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom for sentencing. The victim’s sister Sara read five letters — four penned by her sisters and one by her — eviscerating Tichon. Sara said that after their mother’s unexpected death in 2023, “The family was shattered.” She accused Tichon of preying on “vulnerable kid at a fragile time” as the boy tried to navigate adolescence, said Tichon “had stabbed us and twisted the knife”, called her “a monster”, “predator” and “dangerous”, and added: “I hate Julie Tichon. We entrusted you with his safety, she used her time to groom him”. Another sister, Phani, wrote that rumors of the relationship left her ostracized at school: “I was isolated and alone. My brother was the victim but they judged me. I hid in the bathroom at school”.

Tichon, seated beside her attorney Tariq Khero, listened without visible reaction. The family’s letters also took issue with the plea arrangement, and the outcome — no jail time — drew pointed criticism from the victim’s relatives, some on the verge of tears as the terms were read. Khero did not excuse her conduct: “It was absolutely wrong, she made horrible mistakes”. He said he was the one who advised Tichon to plead no contest rather than guilty, and that “She’s made some terrible mistakes, and she’s not making those mistakes again.” Leaving the courthouse with her mother, Tichon offered a brief, attributed apology, telling The California Post: “I’m sorry, I wished it never happened”.

Current Status

Tichon was sentenced on May 28, 2026 to two years of probation with no jail time. The terms require her to register as a sex offender for 10 years, stay in therapy — her plea agreement includes 52 weeks of counseling — keep 100 yards away from the victim, and pay restitution in an amount to be set at a later hearing. Asked whether she understood the terms, she answered, “yes, your honor.” Speaking outside court after the plea, Tichon attributed her actions to a period of immense personal trauma and said: “The way I was feeling when this happened, the dark place I was in, I don’t think I’m ever going to feel that way again”. She called the registration requirement “shameful and embarrassing” but accepted the district attorney’s terms “as a sacrifice I have to make for a better life.”

The affair is not closed for YULA. A second student, now 20, has filed a lawsuit alleging years of abuse by Tichon that the school should have stopped — claims the school’s head, Rabbi Arye Sufrin, called “absolutely unfounded” — and Tichon, who is not named in that suit, said of its allegations against her: “These things never happened”. Her no-contest pleas cannot be used as proof in civil litigation against her, though no such case had been filed against her personally as of the plea.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The consequences for Tichon’s career are terminal. A counselor at an Orthodox Jewish high school, she was fired within days of the reports in May 2024, referred to police by her own employer, and is now a convicted felon whose name is attached to a decade-long sex offender registration. Her avoidance of prison, while a legal outcome, came at the cost of a public reckoning in court, where her victim’s family called her a predator and a monster and faulted a deal that spared her custody. Khero said she is now focused on “a lot of work on herself, more therapy, healing and making herself better so no one gets put in this position again.” Her record now states plainly what she admitted by plea: sexually abusing a student entrusted to her care.