(upbeat music) - From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi.

- Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Thursday night.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

Tonight, a few stories we're digging into later in the broadcast.

As a historic sex abuse trial kicks off against private prep school Del Barton, we talk with one survivor from the school about his story and his take on the new lawsuit.

Then all this week, back to school, we talk about how some districts are dealing with a shortage of teachers in the classroom.

And later, microbedding is gaining popularity, but we'll tell you why mental health experts are sounding the alarm on this trend.

First though, a few of today's top headlines.

Newly released body camera footage from an incident in New Brunswick is once again raising questions about how police handle mental health emergencies.

The Attorney General's office late Wednesday released 911 calls and graphic footage from the fatal police shooting of 68-year-old Deborah Terrell on August 8th.

Now a warning, some viewers might find this footage disturbing.

Officers were called to Terrell's New Brunswick apartment twice that morning after reports that Terrell, who neighbors say was in crisis, was disturbing residents and threatening others with a knife.

The body camera footage shows officers repeatedly trying to talk with her through a locked door.

Terrell opens it several times while holding a knife, but refuses to engage, then steps into the hallway with knife in hand.

The Attorney General's office says officers used pepper spray and a taser before one officer fired two shots, killing her.

The shooting has reignited outrage among advocates, residents and Terrell's family, who say New Jersey police continue to be unprepared for mental health-related calls, marking just the latest in a string of deadly encounters involving people in crisis.

The attorney general's office is investigating her death, and state law requires a grand jury review.

Also tonight, just hours after Newark Mayor Raz Baraka endorsed Democrat Mikie Sherrill for governor Wednesday, news broke of sexual harassment allegations by a former city cop against him and other top Newark officials.

Laura Ciesla, who served as a Newark police officer between 2018 and 2024, filed a federal lawsuit last month accusing Baraka of making unwanted advances like flirtatious messages, requests for explicit photos, and invitations for spa dates that she rejected.

Ciesla also accused male colleagues within the police department of similar behavior and claims she was unfairly punished for testing positive on a drug test for a prescribed painkiller, despite alerting supervisors of the prescription.

Ceaseless said she reported the harassment to department higher-ups and the police union, but got no help.

She's seeking compensation and punitive damages.

Kenyatta Stewart, counsel for the city, said in a statement, "The city completely denies the allegations in the complaint against the mayor, and given that this is the first notice on all allegations against the mayor and members of the Newark Police Division, the city will be conducting a full-fledged investigation into this matter.

And the 2025 gubernatorial election has already proven to be an expensive one.

New reports from New Jersey's Election Law Enforcement Commission reveal combined spending by candidates and outside groups was more than $145 million leading up to the primary in June.

That's the most money spent in a primary election cycle in the state's history.

In the packed field of candidates, including Democratic nominee Mikey Sherrill and Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli, they spent more than $62 million on their campaigns alone.

And that number, of course, is expected to be much higher once all is said and done.

Meanwhile, they've got a lot more voters for candidates to reach.

New Jersey's added close to 18,000 voters since the primary, according to state data.

And Democrats appear to be losing ground with the gains made during that primary.

Voter rolls show an increase of 2,600 Republicans, while newly registered Democratic voters dropped by more than 4,400.

The rest were unaffiliated.

Analysts, though, are quick to point out Democrats still have a lead over the GOP by about 862,000 voters.

Coming up, he grew up on the grounds of Del Bar and then came forward with allegations of sex abuse.

We speak with survivor Billy Crane about the trial now putting the school back under scrutiny and what it took for him to break his silence.

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Well, jury selection is underway in a landmark sex abuse lawsuit against Del Barton School, a prominent Catholic prep school in Morristown.

The case, filed by a former student known only as T.M., accuses Benedictine monk Father Richard Lott of sexually abusing him as a child in the 1970s.

It's the first civil sex abuse case against the Catholic Church in New Jersey to go to trial, but it's not the first time the school has been in the spotlight for abuse allegations.

Del Barton and the Order of St. Benedict, which owns and operates the school, faces 39 pending lawsuits, while dozens of other cases have already been settled, including that of Billy Crane, who, along with his twin brother, sued the school in 2012, alleging abuse by two priests decades ago, and he joins me now.

Billy, first of all, thank you so much for coming on the show and for being willing to share your story, as I know you've done many times.

What made you and your brother get to that decision?

Why did you decide at that moment to come forward?

It was time to expose the culture at Del Barton.

And obviously with allocations and other students coming forward, we wanted to start advocating for the victims because the school was unwilling to do that and still unwilling to disdain the whole greater Del Barton community has not extended any charity or advocacy for any of the victims.

And we simply came forward to drive a much needed change in the culture.

- Yeah, I mean, I know you mentioned that there were others, but at what point did you realize that you weren't alone?

That there was, as you called it, a culture, this culture of abuse at this school?

When I got out of the Navy, I actually worked in the maintenance department at Del Barton.

And we had access to the priest's private cloisters for maintenance, such as electrical, changing the light, plumbing.

And the rooms were filled with pornography and women's lingerie.

And it stirred up emotion with me and realized that it hadn't changed.

So this is what happened to me when I was age 10 and 11 at the school, living on the grounds when my dad was a teacher there.

Yeah, I mean it was really like a second home for your family, no?

This was a place that you're- It really was.

Yeah.

And it was family there.

So that's, and we remained family until we came forward.

We dealt with them behind closed doors and asked them to do the right thing and they were unwilling to do the right thing, even with all their investigators, their Abbey Review Board.

And that's when, with our attorney Greg Jennifer Carro, we decided the only action recourse we had was filing our case through the judicial system.

Your case... And obviously that... No, go on, continue.

And obviously that brought more victims forward, so we knew we weren't alone.

Have you connected with those victims?

Billy, I know you do a lot of advocacy work.

Your case was settled in 2018.

What have those discussions been like?

Very tough.

Lives have been shattered.

Relationships are tough.

It's a very ugly subject to talk about.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage.

I'm very thankful that I have a really good support group with my family, and particularly my son, Sean.

And it's been great to connect with the victims.

It's a double-edged sword.

It's tragic, and at the same time, it's encouraging.

And I think it's also fair to share at this time, through the litigation process, all Del Barton did was intimidate us and did everything they could to destroy us.

So, my relationship, unfortunately, I divorced in 2017, just because it was so overwhelming and taxing.

And I got the same feedback with other victims, including John Ruane, who also has a lawsuit filed with Robbins Kaplan.

And he said, yeah, Billy, you weren't kidding.

And John died earlier this year from a brain tumor with surgery.

So he's no longer here.

And there's several other victims at the school, resorted to alcoholism.

They all died premature deaths as well.

And so that's -- with this case coming forward with TM, it's monumental.

And finally, we got somebody that we're going to be there vicariously with and see the whole culture exposed at Dalbarton.

And that's really what needs to take place.

They've been very successful with their lawyers intimidating and internalizing the whole culture of abuse.

And the Abbey should be shut down altogether.

There should be no member of the clergy in the headmaster 'cause once again, all it does is internalize and they control a small rudder steers a big ship, and the rudder that steers the ship at Del Barton is corrupt and it needs much needed change.

- I'd love to get your take on this.

We reached out for a statement from Del Barton.

Here's what they had to say today.

"Nothing is more important to us "than the safety of the young people entrusted to our care, "and we aggressively adhere to rigorous standards to ensure their well-being.

Please note that both St. Mary's Abbey and Del Barton School are accredited by Presidium, an independent risk management organisation that audits procedures to ensure a safe environment.

Now, that's from both St. Mary's Abbey and the headmaster.

How does that square with you?

It's a PR stunt, is what it is.

So there's no validity behind it.

And where do they communicate that there's advocacy for the victims and that we're here to support you?

We have a moment of silence.

You're still a part of our brotherhood.

So that's what's lacking.

And Presidium is a joke because Bishop Elias Lorenzo is on the board at Presidium and you can look that up.

He's been accused as well, yes.

Yes, but he's actually on the board at Presidium, so is it the rooster guarding the hen house here?

I mean, what's going on?

So, they have zero minus zero credibility with what they've done for the last 30 years.

And that's all they've done is intimidate people.

So this is a day of reckoning.

It's monumental.

The culture is gonna be exposed and much needed change is coming.

And unfortunately, the whole Del Barton greater community failed miserably in giving their fellow classmates and people that were sexually abused numerous times at the school any support.

Their lawyers have intimidated and created this culture that once again, and it's an accepted culture among the clergy.

This is a never-ending scandal, which sees no end.

Today in the courtroom with the jury selection, we want to move forward with ending this scandal altogether and allow the much needed healing and change to begin.

Billy Crane, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for sharing your story again.

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much for giving victims and survivors a voice.

It's well appreciated.

Thank you.

We continue our look all this week at top issues facing teachers, parents and students during the first week back at school.

Tonight, teacher shortages.

With tightening budgets and state aid slashed to many districts across the state, some schools have been left with dire options.

Either cut staff or raise property taxes to keep teachers in already packed classrooms.

>> The school district is looking at the everyday impact these shortages are having on students and their schools.

>> It's back to school for students and a fresh start for families.

But for several school districts in New Jersey, the start of the year has been a grueling process trying to balance budgets.

Districts like Jackson.

>> We had an $11 million shortfall in our budget that needed to be filled.

And so what we have done is closed the school, restructured And so what we have done is closed to school, restructured our district, and we are currently selling a school.

-Jackson Superintendent Nicole Porcelli says they've already had to close an elementary school last year.

They had a committee considering a larger restructure but only really got started when they got their state funding numbers in the last budget cycle.

That meant lots of work in a short time.

-We closed a middle school, and now we have restructured, where we have one high school of about 2,300 students.

It's a large high school.

And now we have one middle school with about 1,050 students.

And then we also restructured and pulled our fifth grade out of our elementary buildings and put them into a 5-6 building.

-With all of these changes, were you able to retain staff, or does this also come with staff cuts, teacher cuts?

-We reduced a little over 100 positions in this current budget.

Overall, over the seven years, we've lost 350 positions.

So as you can imagine, we feel that.

We have a lot of people doing a lot more work, but we have not had to lose any programs this year.

Camden Public Schools are dealing with a 91 million dollar deficit this year that led outgoing Superintendent Katrina McCombs to cut more than a hundred staff positions, explains Ransha Dickerson, executive director of the Camden Parents and Students Union.

- She just finished her time as a superintendent by laying off over 117 staff.

Now in that staff, my Lord, she laid off all the supports that we have inside the school.

So climate and culture people, family operations coordinators, attendance officers, certain security officers, they're all gone.

Her remedy to building back that deficit was to lay off those teachers, merge schools into different buildings, and then cut, reduce staff in other buildings.

So it turned the district upside down.

Dickerson says the one Camden enrollment program has pushed kids away from traditional public schools toward Renaissance schools, leading to state funding declines.

But Camden schools are under state control, and she blames the state for not addressing the shortfall earlier.

We should never be in a situation where we're looking at a budget deficit if the state was here monitoring how the money was being spent.

So this seems like it's manufactured misery to a community that's suffering right now with losing its entire support staff across the district.

But it's not all bad news.

In fact, some districts that have faced year-over-year budget shortfalls are finally feeling right-sized.

For the first time, we're feeling very positive that we can focus on kids and programs and supports.

Even though it's bare bones, I feel like I'm not filling in a hole anymore.

Even though they got there on the backs of their taxpayers.

We ultimately ended up with an 18% tax levy increase.

And I think we're talking about any tax increase.

It makes for difficult conversations in the community.

- In Plainfield, that 18% increase fell short of the 36% they needed to fill their budget hole.

The nearly 20% gap meant Superintendent Rashaan Hassan had to make some hard choices this year.

Fortunately, it did not result in any reductions of staff, but what it did mean is that some facility projects that we intended to execute in the 25-26 school year had to be deferred.

Over two years, residents in Toms River have seen a 22% total tax increase.

Which is close to $35 million to our taxpayers in two years.

You know, that's a lot of money.

We have not had to lay off, but we've had to scale back through attrition.

So in order to balance these budget and keep the impact as low as possible, I'm working a million and a half dollars less in salaries just in the administration and business office.

- Both Plainfield and Toms River feel the pressure now of proving a return on those tax increase investments, which they're committed to doing.

And each of these districts says the funding formula needs to be fixed and fast so districts can get back to focusing on educating their kids.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Joanna Gagas.

In our Spotlight on Business report, a new front in the world of sports betting is under scrutiny.

As the NFL season kicks off tonight, online gamblers are expected to be busy on their phones placing bets.

But a fast-growing trend called micro-betting is drawing sharp criticism from both mental health experts and some lawmakers who say it's dangerously addictive and are going so far as to propose a ban on micro-betting altogether.

For more on this, I'm joined by our mental health reporter, Bobbi Breyer, to explain why it's under fire and what a ban would do to the online gambling industry here.

Bobby, good to see you.

So for those of us not in the know, what is micro betting and why is it so dangerous?

Sure.

You know, micro betting is interesting in that it's this fast paced type of in-game betting.

Essentially, it would allow for a gambler to place a bet on a specific event that's about to happen.

Essentially, that would look like whether or not the next play in a football game like tonight's game against the Eagles or the Cowboys would be a pass or a run, or it may look like whether or not a pitcher would throw a ball or a strike at the next at-bat.

That really has been shown to be addictive for many people, especially young men right now, and it's something that's really growing in popularity.

I recently had the chance to speak with Dan Cassino of Fairleigh Dickinson University, who really knows about this, and he spoke to me more about some of the problems that are associated with microbetting, and here's what he had to say about it.

When you start having these very small bets in there during these micro bets during a game, are they going to run or they're going to pass on this play?

How many yards is that punt going to go?

That gives you instant feedback, and that instant feedback is what makes them so dangerous, because you can be betting in Super Bowl, we see times you have more than 100 bets in a single game.

That's really terrifying because you can be making bet after bet after bet after bet.

You get it right, you get it wrong, well, that's just like playing the slot machine, and it makes it much more addictive.

Bri, as Dan points out in that video, those quick instant bets are really what experts have told me, triggers dopamine releases in a person's brain.

As we know, dopamine is that neurotransmitter that functions as a person's reward system that often controls mood and motivation and memory.

If that instant dopamine release happens again and again and again, like it does in micro-betting, it changes the brain's chemistry over time.

And that's really what public health officials, advocates, and now lawmakers are concerned about.

Yeah, I mean, I see it.

It's like a rapid fire system that you're going through, which obviously keeps you engaged in the game, but also in continuing to make bets.

What type of proposals then are on the table?

I know that there's legislation that's been put out there.

What exactly is it looking to do?

Yeah, right now it's interesting.

This is a bill that has been sponsored by Assemblyman Dan Hutchinson out of South Jersey.

And essentially what this would allow for is for a complete ban on micro-betting.

So that would penalize sportsbooks or people from placing a -- or offering a specific wager on a micro-bet.

This would carry right now, at least as the bill stands, a criminal penalty and a monetary fine as well, currently a criminal penalty of a disorderly person's offense, along with a $500-1,000 fine per bet.

But it's important to note right now, this is still a bill that has not been introduced in either the Senate or the Assembly.

It is still in its draft legislation.

And it's something that Hutchinson told me he expects to have a significant amount of pushback, at least from the casino industry right now.

Yeah.

I mean, what are the folks in the industry and the sportsbook saying?

You know, many have said that this is not only the most popular type of gambling, but it's one that could continue to bring in revenue for the state.

As we know, the state has a vested interest in continuing to promote the interest of casinos because of course that helps to bring in tax revenue in many situations.

But it also should be noted that, you know, Hutchinson's main focus for this bill, at least what he told me, stems from his own work as a bankruptcy attorney.

He had mentioned a client recently who decided to gamble rather than to pay his mortgage, and it really is something that flagged an issue for him that could grow more and more as this issue kind of continues.

It's also interesting to note right here that we're beginning an NFL season that has an estimated $30 billion expected from Americans to wager on.

That's according to some of the latest numbers from the American Gaming Association.

But it's also coming at a time when the World Series is coming in October, a very hot time for gambling.

In New Jersey here, we'll see the FIFA World Cup next year, another especially interesting time for gambling.

So more to come on this, but especially interesting from Hutchinson here.

Yeah, I mean, given all of that, I would imagine it's going to be pretty difficult politically to get something like this done when they're bringing in more revenue than ever and expected to bring in even more.

That's right, you know, and that's we're going to see this play out if it does get introduced and come up to a vote in either the Senate or Assembly, I imagine long term hearings or discussions about revising this bill potentially or also what other issues could come to the forefront before it actually gets to the governor's desk for a signature.

So there's a long runway here before this bill would actually be signed into law, but an interesting development here that lawmakers have spotted as to the rise in micro-betting and what many experts have called a serious public health concern.

Bobby, great reporting as always.

You can read Bobby's full story on this and more on our website, njspotlightnews.org.

Thanks as always.

Thank you, Brie.

Support for The Business Report is provided by Riverview Jazz, presenting the Jersey City Latin Jazz Festival, September 5th through 6th.

Event details, including performance schedules and location, are online at jerseycitylatinjazzfestival.com.

That's going to do it for us tonight, but a reminder, you can download our podcast wherever you listen and watch us anytime by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can always follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

And if you want to help support the programming public media brings you and keep stations like this one thriving, head to njspotlightnews.org/donate.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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I see myself.

I became an ESL teacher to give my students what I wanted when I came to this country.

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A chance to belong and to be an American.

My name is Julia Torriani-Crompton and I'm proud to be an NJEA member.

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