Jury sees video admission by former Morris Township preschool teacher charged with sex assault

Defendant Thomas Meier, lower right, and his attorney, Paul Faugno, listen as Meier's October 2019 police interrogation is shown to the jury, May 16, 2023. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains mature subject matter.

A former preschool teacher on trial for sexual assault and child endangerment admitted that contact with a 3 1/2 year-old girl in a Morris Township classroom may have sexually aroused him in October 2019.

The admission was contained in a three-hour police interrogation video played for jurors Tuesday, the second day of Thomas Meier’s trial before Superior Court Judge Noah Franzblau in Morristown.

“It was just the closeness was nice… it was nice being close to somebody, and then maybe she turned around and rubbed her butt against my crotch, or it was the act of her being near me, that made me get aroused,” Meier, now 38, told investigators.

He could face 20 years in prison and $300,000 in fines if convicted of the second-degree charges.

Superior Court Judge Noah Franzblau denies motions to acquit Thomas Meier, May 16, 2023. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

The case stems from a single witness, Head Start teacher assistant Nora Ortiz, who testified she saw Meier stand up with an erection after the little girl had been perched between his legs during a class.

Meier’s attorney, Paul Faugno, asked the judge to acquit his client, contending the charges did not match the evidence.

Meier’s arousal was an unintentional “anatomical event,” no sexual advances ensued, and the girl, according to testimony by her father and a county detective, was oblivious to the incident. Therefore, her morals could not have been impaired or debauched, the lawyer said, after Morris Assistant Prosecutors Catherine LaQuaglia and Bridget Carr rested their case Tuesday in an airless, steamy courtroom, in Morris County’s historic, antiquated courthouse.

A jury finding of endangerment here could set a “dangerous” precedent, Faugno suggested. Suppose a child awoke and wandered into his parents’ bedroom to discover his father masturbating. Could the father be hit with this charge? the lawyer asked.

The judge denied Faugno’s motions, saying the prosecution presented sufficient evidence for the jury to parse the legal nuances.

FROM INTERVIEW TO INTERROGATION

Meier’s predicament might have been avoided, Faugno conceded, “If Tom was smart enough to retain a lawyer or keep his mouth shut.”

Instead, Meier voluntarily spoke with Carolina Moreno, then detective supervisor of the Morris County Prosecutor’s sex crimes unit, and Morris Township Police Detective Robert Dombrowski, two days after the Oct. 8, 2019 incident. The video was recorded in the Mt. Arlington police station, near Meier’s home.

Meier waived his Miranda rights. He later attempted, unsuccessfully, to have his indictment overturned, arguing that Moreno should have informed him he was suspected of a crime.

Chummy at first, the interview veered into an interrogation that probed intimate aspects of Meier’s life: The last time he had sex, his frequency of masturbation, “pee boners,” even his underwear type. (Portions of the video were redacted; the jury is not supposed to speculate about what those segments might have explored.)

Detective Carolina Moreno, now with the Somerset Prosecutor’s Office, testifies in the Thomas Meier case. Superior Court Judge Noah Franzblau listens. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Repeatedly, Meier expressed his mortification about what had transpired in the classroom. It was an unintentional, “biological” moment, he said. The little girl had come to school cranky and whiny and upset, and she approached him for hugs and consolation.

The Morristown High graduate insisted the girl only clung to his shoulder–he had been seated on a kid-sized chair amidst 14 preschoolers playing a memory card game–and denied any recollection of her standing between his legs.

Meier even suggested the 62-year-old Ortiz, who on Monday had testified they were friends, was jealous because he was a man in a traditionally female work environment, and kids preferred him. (“She’s cold as a snow pea.”)

Looking “somewhat pale…somewhat scared,” Ortiz came to teacher assistant Olga Gallo’s classroom right after the incident, Gallo testified Tuesday. Ortiz told her the girl had been standing between Meier’s legs, though she said nothing about Meier touching the girl,  recounted Gallo, now retired.

Head Start employees are trained to report any possibility of child abuse or improper behavior, testified Morris chapter CEO Susan O’Donnell. Meier acknowledged his erection to her and was “mortified and embarrassed,” she said, but no inappropriate touching of the girl was mentioned during their discussion.

O’Donnell said she contacted state authorities and a local school district, which partners with Head Start.

THE CRUCIAL ‘5 PERCENT’

Despite inconsistencies in Ortiz’ statements, the prosecution has maintained there was contact between Meier’s groin and the girl’s backside, warranting the sexual assault charge.

Moreno and Dombrowski kept pressing Meier about this on the video, asserting he was holding back the crucial “5 percent” of the story from them.

When he raised fears about being branded a pedophile and losing his career, they assured him they would not divulge their conversation to Head Start.

Dombrowski suggested to Meier he had been in a “sensitive” arousal state because, by his own account, he had not had sex for more than a year.

Meier finally allowed that Ortiz’s narrative could be accurate, and he probably had spent too long comforting the girl–15 or 20 minutes, perhaps–while simultaneously running the class.

“And I guess she ended up between my legs at some point…she leaned back down against me, I got the boner, I stood up and Nora saw it. I made it go away, I sat back down.”

Meier told the investigators “it was nice having the closeness with (the girl)… she likes me, she seeks me for comfort. I like closeness with other human beings, too. She may have rubbed against me the wrong way and I may have gotten an erection, and I feel horrible about it.”

Meier could testify on Wednesday, though his attorney said it’s unlikely.

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