Northfield, NJ Mayor Faces Sexual & Other Improper Allegations

Northfield, New Jersey Mayor Erland Chau appeared in studio this morning for a wide ranging on-air interview that included his career as a Councilman and Mayor … along with serious allegations regarding alleged improper conduct by Chau.

Annette Alegret, formally Annette Carmen wrote me a letter, outlining 4 different issues that she had with Chau during her teaching career at Mainland Regional High School … where she taught from 1998 through 2013.

Chau is a retired teacher with 45 years of service.

Here is a breakdown of the four issues that Alegret is alleging regarding Chau, unedited in her own words:

1. “On one occasion, I had to speak to Erland and he was in his prep room office, which was on the way into the class. His students were awaiting him, and he told me to step inside to speak privately. When the conversation was finished, we stepped out and he pretended to be zipping up his pants and he said, "Thank you, Mrs. Carmen." He was insinuating that I had committed some type of inappropriate act. The students went wild, laughing loudly and making sounds.”
2. “On another occasion, he placed a Slim Fast in my mailbox and asserted on a Post It note that I might be needing it. I had recently gained some weight. When he was questioned about why he had done this, because there were witnesses to the incident as well as a camera in the main office, he said he was trying to be nice by giving me the Slim Fast as a gift.”
3. “On yet another occasion, he placed a rubber rat in my mailbox with yet another Post It saying, "This is for you." It had recently come out that I was personal friends with the new principal and he asserted once again that I might be telling him confidential information regarding the union. Erland was caught on the main office camera that faced the mailboxes yet again.”
4. “On yet another occasion, we were both proctoring the SATs and he was upset that I was in "his classroom" when he needed to be in there to grade his papers and he proceeded to start screaming at me during the SATs; thereby, further disturbing the college testing. I wrote a letter to the powers that be, but his behavior had always gone unchecked and this was no exception.”

Question-by-question, I asked Chau if he was guilty of the allegations?

Chau denied the first allegation saying that it never happened.

Chau acknowledged placing the can of Slim Fast in Alegret’s mailbox, saying that he could no longer use the product because of a medical condition and he stated that he left the Slim Fast to help Alegret.

Chau gave a muddled response to the 3rd allegation regarding whether he left a rubber rat in her mailbox. He didn’t deny it, but, also didn’t accept responsibility for it.

4. Regarding the 4th allegation, Chau did discuss that allegretto was using his classroom for the college testing, however, Chau denies the allegation that he had disrupted the testing.

Before concluding this morning’s 7:00 a.m. interview with Chau, I advised him that the Mother of a child who filed disturbing allegations about Chau would be joining us for the 8:00 a.m. hour.

I advised Chau that if there is anything discussed that he wants to comment about; I would make the time available to give him the opportunity to be heard.

Rita Porter is the Mother of a former Mainland Regional High School student, who is known in official school incident report records as “KG.”

“KG’s” allegations are from October, 2016 and they are deeply disturbing in nature.

Here is a copy of KG’s hand written incident report about an alleged incident that he officially reported:

Eight additional students each wrote a handwritten incident report. Each one of them supports “KG’s” version of what is alleged to have happened in Chau’s classroom.

The allegations were reviewed by the school assistant principal and the superintendent signed the investigative report, where he checked the box that read, “I agree with principal’s recommendation (no additional information needed/required).”

The former student ”KG” is listed in the documentation as “alleged victim.”

Chau is listed as “alleged bully.”

I have obtained 24 documents regarding this alleged incident. Below are copies 5 of the documents, which in part reads: “confirmed incident: the district’s investigation has found that actions committed against your child by another student, have met the criteria necessary, according to the law and port policy, to be deemed a confirmed case of harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying.”

Rita Porter advised on-air that she will be contacting Atlantic County Prosecutor Will Reynolds and asking for the Erland Chau allegations to be reopened.

I asked Porter if she believes that Chau received preferential treatment because he is the sitting Mayor of Northfield.

Porter said, “Yes.”