School Custodian Who Wanted to 'Harm the Students' Admits Tainting Kids' Food with Feces, Urine

School Custodian Who Wanted to 'Harm the Students' Admits Tainting Kids' Food with Feces, Urine https://ift.tt/fpCdvYk

Giovanni Impellizzeri, 27, of New Jersey was also accused of spraying cucumbers with bleach, the DA said

Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office

Giovanni Impellizzeri

Content warning: The following article contains disturbing descriptions.

A former New Jersey school janitor is facing eight years in prison after admitting to tainting children’s utensils and cafeteria food with feces, urine and bleach.

On Monday, Jan. 13, Giovanni Impellizzeri, 27, of Vineland, pleaded guilty to second-degree official misconduct, according to a statement from Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae.

He also pleaded guilty to third-degree possession of child sexual abuse material, Webb-McRae said in the statement.

Arrested on Oct. 31, 2023, Impellizzeri was initially charged with aggravated assault, tampering with food products and endangering the welfare of children. He was later charged with second-degree official misconduct, according to a 2023 release from the prosecutor’s office.

During the course of the investigation, detectives discovered that Impellizzeri was in possession of child sexual abuse material, Webb-McRae said.

On Nov. 8, 2023, he was then charged with one count of possession of and one count of distribution of child sexual abuse material, she said.

New Jersey State Police began investigating on Oct. 30, 2023, after authorities at Elizabeth F. Moore School received anonymous tips about videos posted to a social media platform, the prosecutor’s office said in the 2023 release.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed on Nov. 2, 2023, officials at the school serving students in grades 3-5 reported receiving anonymous tips about “alarming posts” seen on the encrypted texting app Telegram.

Impellizzeri was posting “extremely disturbing videos of himself while at work,” according to the affidavit.

A tipster said that while on a Telegram group thread, he saw Impellizzeri texting and posting videos of himself in what appeared to be a school setting “performing sexual acts with items from the school as well as doing things that would endanger the well-being of the students at the school.”

Videos and posts the tipster saved from Telegram showed Impellizzeri wiping his private parts on various utensils and items from the school, the affidavit says.

He “was seen masturbating and urinating on pillows and kitchen bowls,” the affidavit says.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

One video showed him “spraying bleach into a container of cucumbers that was later served to children at the school, with the intention of harming the students,” according to the affidavit.

Video showed Impellizzeri using “multiple pieces of bread to wipe his [private parts] as well as spitting on the bread before putting the bread back into the container to be later served to children at the school,” according to the affidavit.

Impellizzeri worked as a custodian for the Upper Deerfield Township Board of Education since 2019.

In the release in 2023, the prosecutor said the district had worked closely with the health department to ensure food preparation, utensils and surfaces were properly sanitized.

“Any food products in question have been discarded,” it said.

Officials collected bodily fluid specimens from the defendant to determine if there was any potential for infectious disease transmission to anyone who ate the contaminated food at the school, it said.

Health officials concluded that any risks to anyone who came in contact with any of the food or items were minimal, NJ.com reported.

Parents were furious when they learned about what the custodian had done at the school, NJ.com reported.

During Monday’s hearing, when Assistant Prosecutor Lindsey Seidel asked him if his intent of placing bodily fluids on food and objects in the school was meant to harm the children at the school, he replied yes, NJ.com reports.

He also admitted to having been in possession of videos on his cell phone depicting child sexual abuse, including explicit videos involving toddlers and infants, according to testimony, NJ.com reports.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 28. His public defender did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.