Jury awards $30 million to man abused at Newark school

A jury on Tuesday awarded $30 million to a 44-year-old man who said he was sexually abused as a child in the 1990s at the Ann Street School in Newark, according to a New York Times report published Jan. 28, 2026. The victim’s lawyers said the abuse usually happened in a tiny windowless office behind the school gym during an after-school program.

The office was furnished with a sofa, a filing cabinet and a desk, and the lawyers said the teacher sometimes offered Oreos and milk or baseball cards; the boy was about 9 when the abuse began and said it continued for four years, occurring hundreds of times and sometimes in the teacher’s car.

The lawyers said the teacher occasionally paid the boy $3. The jury found the Newark Board of Education and the City of Newark liable and held the estate of the teacher, John Cantalupo, also liable. Jurors allocated 70 percent of liability to the school board, 20 percent to the city and 10 percent to Cantalupo’s estate.

Cantalupo ran the after-school program at Ann Street in the Ironbound neighborhood and died by suicide in 1995. The victim’s lawyers said the $30 million award is the largest such award in New Jersey since a 2019 law extended the statute of limitations to allow abuse survivors under 55 to bring suit.

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