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Everton A. Johnson, 19, was indicted Oct. 2 and formally charged in court by Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Dion Findley with three counts of sexual assault and one of endangering the morals of a child.
Johnson was attending Rutherford High School during the alleged relationship, which authorities said lasted from March to May as the girl turned from 13 to 14.
He was 18 at the time and four years older than her — which amounts to statutory rape under New Jersey law.
Johnson already was awaiting court action in connection with the April 22 theft of a cellphone from a hallway outside the high school weight room. Police said they found him carrying marijuana, for which he was also charged.
Detectives arrested him in June after the girl told a guidance counselor at Alfred S. Faust Middle School in East Rutherford and detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Special Victims Unit interviewed her.
According to an indictment returned by a grand jury in Hackensack last month, Johnson had intercourse and oral sex with the girl.
He is due back in court Jan. 5.
Meanwhile, he remained held on $50,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail.
RELATED: Nothing in the law can be more definitive than what constitutes statutory rape: It is a crime that occurs in New Jersey when one of the partners is between 13 and 16 and the other is at least four years older. And it can put a convicted offender in prison for a long time. READ MORE….
STORY / PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia
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