Cops: Ex-Aramark Janitor Stalked Roxbury Student

Charges were filed Wednesday against a former Roxbury High School custodian for allegedly taking a picture of a student there without her consent, police said.

Jose Alfaro was charged with harassment, a disorderly persons offense, and stalking, a fourth-degree crime, and released pending a court appearance, according to a Roxbury police news release.

Prior to his arrest, the incident was mentioned by a Madison police lieutenant , the same company the defendant worked for.

The board , citing financial and structural concerns with the Aramark deal, as well as concerns raised by the community.

Roxbury High School conducted an investigation, without police, after the incident was reported in November, and Aramark then fired the employee. Roxbury police began investigating after a concerned citizen notified them of the incident on April 30, police said.

After being fired by Aramark, Alfaro was hired as a custodian by the Mount Olive Board of Education, which wasn't aware of the Roxbury incident, police said. Roxbury police notified Mount Olive police of the charges on Wednesday, police said.

Correction: Alfaro was already an employee of the Mount Olive school district, where he worked for the past decade, according to the Mount Olive Chronicle.

Some Madison school officials said on May 8 it isn't fair to take one incident to view an entire company or organization in a negative light.

"It's not fair to take one incident and smear an entire industry," Madison Board Vice President Pat Rowe said, adding he thought Madison Police Lt. Jerry Mantone, who raised the issue, was asking people to infer that.

Rowe said Thursday he noted Roxbury was able to take quick action and had Aramark dismiss the employee, and then the janitor subsequently was hired by Mount Olive's Board of Education, indicating standard school background checks never caught the fact he was fired from a previous job for a serious issue.

The day after the issue was raised, news broke about a public school teacher at Clifton High School being charged with sexually assaulting a student.

"But we shouldn’t, and wouldn’t, trash all public school teachers just because a tiny percentage endanger the health and safety of our children," Rowe said. "I would hope that people would apply the same standard to any private employer or industry that also employs millions of workers nationwide."

"All employers, public and private, try their best to find and retain good people," he said. "Despite all of our efforts to weed out potentially bad employees, a small percentage turn out to have serious issues and need to be fired."

Madison Superintendent Dr. Michael Rossi said the defendant could have turned out to be one of the in-house custodians still employed by the Roxbury Board of Education. Rossi was Roxbury's superintendent last school year when Roxbury arranged a contract with Aramark for some of its custodial services.

"The implication is that the outsourced company somehow put an employee there that maybe perpetrated this," Rossi said. "There are just as many on staff Roxbury employees that were retained as were outsourced."

Mantone said he didn't think it was unfair to bring it up and he wasn't smearing anybody.

"I thought it was important to know," he said.

There were similar exchanges when Montville .

Vickie Walsh, the New Jersey Education Association representative for the district's custodial staff, told the Montville board the company "has a track record of hiring sex offenders, drug users and illegal aliens," and referenced news clippings about examples of improper conduct by GCA Services custodial employees across the country.

Montville's schools business administrator said other organizations also have problems.

"It's important to point our that there are many, many cases where NJEA employees commit heinous crimes," Montville Business Administrator James Tevis said. "It happens, unfortunately, in any organization."

The Roxbury police news release follows:

Chief James Simonetti of the Roxbury Township Police Department announces the arrest of Jose Alfaro, a previous employee of Aramark.  Mr. Alfaro was employed as a janitor, working at the Roxbury High School, where Aramark is subcontracted to provide janitorial services.

On November 29th, 2011, a female juvenile student, reported to her teacher that she was uncomfortable with Alfaro’s behavior. The female reported the accused approached her and requested to take her picture.  The juvenile female stated this made her extremely uncomfortable and told Jose Alfaro not to take her picture.  She stated she believed he took the photo anyway.  The investigation revealed Mr. Alfaro did in fact take the juvenile’s photo against her will and was engaged in repeated courses of alarming conduct during this time period.  The incident was captured by a closed caption video system maintained by the Roxbury High School.  

After the incident was reported, school officials conducted an investigation, independent of the police, and Jose Alfaro was terminated from Aramark. 

On April 30th, 2012 a concerned citizen notified the Roxbury Police Department of the incident involving Mr. Alfaro.  An investigation was initiated, and Jose Alfaro was arrested on May 23rd, 2012, and charged with Harassment, a disorderly persons offense, and Stalking, a crime of the fourth degree.  He was released on his own recognizance pending a court appearance.

As of this date, Mr. Alfaro is currently employed by the Mount Olive Board of Education, who was previously unaware of the incident.  On May 23rd, 2012, the Mount Olive Police were notified of all charges against Alfaro.