A former student at Roselle Catholic High School is suing the school and the Archdiocese of Newark, alleging that a teacher there repeatedly sexually abused her starting when she was 17 years old. The woman, now 26, says the abuse began around 2018 and happened at least five times, including fondling, kissing, and being forced to touch the teacher, Carlos Franco-Leon, who was later convicted of sex crimes against a different student at another Catholic school.
Lawsuit Filed in Essex County
The lawsuit, filed last week in Essex County according to NJ.com, claims Franco-Leon sent the student lewd photographs and videos of himself through Snapchat and asked her to send nude photos in return. The suit alleges the abuse took place inside a Roselle Catholic locker room, a calculus classroom, and hallways near the science classrooms and an equipment room. It also claims Franco-Leon convinced the student to drive him from school to a train station on at least one occasion.
Franco-Leon, now 49, was a married father of two at the time, according to the lawsuit. Before joining Roselle Catholic, he worked as a teacher and volleyball coach at Morris Catholic High School, a position he resigned from, the suit says, after being accused of sexually abusing two female students there between 2016 and 2018. The lawsuit also alleges he had separately been accused of sexually abusing a girl while working at Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair.
Allegations Followed Him From School to School
According to the lawsuit, the Archdiocese of Newark knew or should have known about the Morris Catholic accusations when it allowed Roselle Catholic to hire Franco-Leon shortly after he left. The suit says a Morris Catholic student reported him to an administrator before he ever arrived at Roselle Catholic, and that Morris Catholic officials reported the allegations to New Jersey's Division of Child Protection and Permanency at the time.
The Morris County Prosecutor's Office charged Franco-Leon in 2020, and he was suspended from his job at Roselle Catholic once those charges became public, the lawsuit states. He later pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated sexual assault and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child, as the Daily Record reported at the time.
Conflicting Accounts of His Sentence
Accounts of Franco-Leon's eventual sentence differ. NJ.com reported he was sentenced to six years in state prison in March 2022, while the Daily Record reported a proposed nine-year sentence — six years for the aggravated sexual assault charge, consecutive to a three-year term for endangering the welfare of a child. State Department of Corrections records show he was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, and he was released from prison on February 19 of this year.
News 12 also reported on a former Catholic school teacher from Rockaway Township charged with sexual assault.
School and Archdiocese Decline to Comment
Roselle Catholic referred questions about the lawsuit to the Archdiocese of Newark rather than responding directly. An archdiocese spokeswoman said commenting on pending litigation would be inappropriate, declining to address the allegations on the school's behalf or her own.
New Jersey law allows certain sexual abuse claims involving minors to be filed well after the alleged abuse occurred — the state's statute permits such actions within 37 years after the victim reaches adulthood, or within seven years of when the injury and its cause are reasonably discovered, according to the New Jersey Legislature. It remains unclear how that provision applies to this particular case, and the defendants have not yet responded in court to the allegations.
