Substitute teacher faces sex-related charges with 14-year-old boy

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Moonachie substitute teacher from Rutherford who was graduated from Felician College and is engaged to marry a U.S. Marine next year is accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with a 14-year-old eighth-grader off school grounds.

Jerry DeMarco

04/29/2011 10:10 p.m.

Patricia Gallegos (PHOTO COURTESY BCPO)

Patricia Gallegos, 24, was arrested today by Moonachie police and members of Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli’s Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit after being questioned at the prosecutor’s office in Paramus.

A judge set $20,000 bail for the former cheerleader and full-scholarship winner on a single, second-degree charge of child endangerment, pending a May 18 Municipal Court date.

The undisclosed alleged incidents with the boy, who attends the Robert L. Craig School, began in March and continued this month, Molinelli said. They “occurred in Moonachie, but not on school grounds,” he said.

Gallegos (FACEBOOK PHOTO)

Based on the charges, the alleged crimes didn’t involve anything physical between the two.

Molinelli said school officials contacted his detectives on Thursday.

Gallegos was graduated from Felician in 2009 after attending the private Roman Catholic school in Rutherford on a full scholarship, online records show. She has been a sub at the elementary school about a year, the prosecutor said.

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