A New Jersey middle school teacher is without a job and facing criminal charges following allegations that she pinned a man to a bed in a Harrah’s Atlantic City hotel room while another woman stole $1,250 from his phone.
Amanda Crafts, 35, of Wildwood, and Veda Engel, 23, of Cape May, are each facing charges of theft and conspiracy to commit robbery, which are both second-degree crimes in New Jersey.
Engel is additionally being charged with prostitution and a disorderly persons offense.
According to probable cause affidavits first reported by BreakingAC, the man met the two women at a Caesars Atlantic City bar and exchanged numbers with Engel.
Later that night, Engel called the man and invited him to join the pair in their hotel room at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City early on Oct. 9.
In the room, the affidavits say that the women stripped the man and pinned him to the bed while Engel performed a sexual act on him.
At one point, Engel stopped and said, “That’s what you get for $1,250.”
Crafts pinned the man to the bed while Engel unlocked the phone using its facial recognition feature and sent herself four Apple Pay payments totaling $1,250, the affidavits claim. The man told investigators that he did not consent to the transactions.
Crafts says that she did not take part in the robbery. During her first court appearance, which was via video from the Atlantic County Justice Facility, she told Judge Timothy Maguire that she had never been arrested and was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Her lawyer says that she went to the room to continue partying, did not pin the man down, and did not know anything about the plan to exchange sex for money.
Crafts, a single mother of four children, told Judge Maguire that she did not know who would take care of her kids while she was in jail. Both women were held for six days until Superior Court Judge Christine Smith ordered their pretrial release at an Oct. 15 detention hearing, which prosecutors agreed to.
The women must now report to the court every two weeks, stay away from each other and the man, and remain employed. According to her attorney, Jordan Barbone, Engel works as a commercial cleaning service worker in Ocean City.
When Crafts told Smith that she was a teacher, the judge asked her if she could go back to work. Crafts said she did not know and would call her union.
Four days later, Middle Township Public Schools Superintendent Stephanie DeRose sent out a letter to families and employees saying that the employee had left the district. The letter did not mention Crafts, as required by privacy laws, and assured that student safety remains the district’s priority.
DeRose had earlier said the arrest had nothing to do with the employee’s work, happened outside Cape May County, and involved no students.
Crafts worked as a computer teacher at Middle Township Middle School and earned $63,668 in 2025, according to public records.
Engel had earlier been charged with prostitution last December after she offered an undercover New Jersey State Police detective sex for $1,000 at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa. She was released on a summons in that case.
Both women are due to return to court on Nov. 18 for a conference ahead of a possible indictment.
