A former wrestling coach and teacher throughout New Jersey was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison for sexually abusing children.
John Denuto, 47, had pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of invasion of privacy. His sentencing was delayed for over a year, and he was given credit for 657 days already served, according to NJ.com.
Last year, Denuto cut a plea deal with Middlesex County prosecutors. The seven-year sentence was part of the deal, though defense attorneys asked for five years at Thursday’s hearing, according to the Bridgewater Courier News.
Denuto was first arrested in February 2020, following years of complaints from students and parents about his teaching methods and interactions with children. Before agreeing to the plea deal, he faced 29 charges in connection with eight alleged victims across multiple schools.
The former coach eventually admitted to grooming and abusing a 15-year-old former student and sexually assaulting another former student off-campus, according to NJ.com.
Though allegations about Denuto were first reported in 2009 while he was a coach and teacher at Sayreville War Memorial High, he was transferred to a middle school and stripped of coaching duties instead of being fired.
In the years that followed, Denuto continued to bounce around to various high schools and wrestling programs, eventually taking a leadership role at 21 different schools and programs during a span of two decades, according to a 2023 NJ.com investigation.
At the time of his arrest, Denuto was coaching at Union County College in Cranford.
“Every opportunity the defendant had to shift the blame to someone else, he has done so,” Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Carver said Thursday, according to NJ.com. “There remains a legitimate question here as to how the defendant will conduct himself in the future.”
