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MILLVILLE — A Millville high school math teacher was arrested here June 4 on charges of sexually assaulting two teenage students on multiple occasions, the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday.

Michael Drebes, 37, was charged with aggravated sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child and official misconduct after the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old female student during the course of four months in three different counties, the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Drebes, a Millville resident, also is accused of sexually assaulting another female student, now 16 years old, whom he taught previously.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Drebes sexually assaulted the 14-year-old in Cumberland, Cape May and Camden counties during a four-month time frame.

The Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office also charged Drebes with aggravated sexual assault of a minor less than 16 years old, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual assault.  Charges in Camden County are pending, according to the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office.

Millville School District Superintendent Shelly Schneider said she became aware of the incidents when police called her the day after Drebes’ arrest. She said police were told by someone other than the victim that one of her students was being sexually assaulted.

The Police Department, the Prosecutor’s Office and the district did not release details about the arrest until Friday while the investigation proceeded.

Drebes was suspended with pay pending the resolution of his court proceedings. Schneider said Drebes has been employed as a math teacher at Memorial High School, which teaches ninth through 10th grades, for five years.

Schneider declined further comment about the case, saying that the district intends on cooperating with law enforcement officials while they continue to do their job.

“Our first job is to make sure we have a safe environment for our students,” Schneider said. “We want to make sure we do everything we can to support the student in addressing this manner.”

Details about the arrest remain unclear. While Schneider said the 14-year-old student remains in school, further information about the 16-year-old was not revealed.

Schneider did not indicate if any action would be taken against Drebes at the district’s next Board of Education meeting on Monday.

The Prosecutor’s Office said Drebes remains in the Cumberland County Jail as of Friday. No information was provided about bail, if any.

The investigation is ongoing.

If anyone has any information about these or other incidents, call Detective Keith Kanauss of the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office at 856-453-0486 or Millville Police Detective Keith O’Brien at 856-825-7010.

E-mail Edward Van Embden:

eVanEmbden@pressofac.com

6 comments:

• ruralarea (46) posts 8:40 am

  Drebes was suspended with pay pending the resolution of his court proceedings. bull, should be dismissed right away, get it started and get it done. don't waste taxpayers money.

• vwsteve (122) posts 8:04 am

  Todfiat...your thought process is fascinating. It's like you have a default prefix to all of your communication....it typically goes like this... [insert religious precept here] and then some sort of loose connection to the actual topic of discussion. I love it.

• todfiat (0) posts 5:44 am

  As I've said here many times, for all the church-bashers and heretics who claim "priests" are chronic molesters, there must be 10 teachers and cops for every priest who has strayed. And teachers and cops do not struggle against a vow of celibacy, either. (Or a vow of poverty, though each group likes to claim so). And there are a whole lot more public schools, and police departments, than there are Catholic churches. Watch your kids, secularists!

• Advocate (90) posts 11:04 pm

  This is the very reason, parents must educate themselves about predators..to protect their own children..schools are not safe places for children, predators prey on children..regardless where the children are..beware of predators!

• pixie1 (89) posts 7:52 pm

  They all have the same sick look in their eyes. A look that just goes right through you. Very disturbing. I hope he doesn't just get time in a rehabilitation facility for sex offenders. The only thing these sick individuals do at those places is network with each other so that they can find ways of doing the same thing when they get out and not get caught. One more thing these scumbags can not be rehabilitated. Just look up FBI profiler statistics, and NJ is one of the most liberal states on them !! That will change when Christie gets in office !!

• Michael_Delaney_disappears (27) posts 5:31 pm

  37? is that a simulated age progression photo or something? the man pictured there is certainly not 37, or maybe he was in 1995.

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