(VitalNews.org) – Giovanni Impellizzeri, a janitor at a New Jersey school, has been charged with several offences relating to food contamination and child pornography. The 25-year-old stands accused of purposefully contaminating utensils and food with bodily fluids and bleach at Elizabeth Moore School where he worked at the time.
Impellizzeri was arrested on October 31 after school authorities reported an anonymous tip-off about the janitor’s alleged activities. In court, prosecutors read messages the man had allegedly sent via social media app Telegram, in which he claimed to have put bleach and fecal matter into children’s food with the intention of making them sick. Other messages are reported to have contained video clips in which he rubs his genitals against kitchen utensils and food that is due to be served to the children. Other messages allegedly show Impellizzeri claiming to be a satanist and to be “sick in the head”.
The alleged incidents described in these messages have been dated as taking place in October 2023, shortly before his arrest, but Impellizzeri has been employed by Elizabeth Moore School since 2019. One mother of a student, Rachel Jenkins, said that children at the school had experienced sickness which had been put down to a gastrointestinal virus, but that Impellizzeri’s arrest raises questions of the true cause of these illnesses. In one of the messages presented by prosecutors, Impellizzeri is alleged to have stated that he caused some children to fall ill by contaminating their food with bleach.
As well as facing multiple charges relating to the alleged contamination, including aggravated assault, Impellizzeri has now been charged with possession and distribution of child pornography. Prosecutors say that he did not create the material himself, but that he possessed it and shared it with others in the local area around Vineland, New Jersey.
Following his bail hearing in which several messages allegedly sent by Impellizzeri were shown to the court, Judge Cristin D’Arrigo opted to keep Impellizzeri in custody rather than release him on bail. Officials say that the school authorities are cooperating with the ongoing investigation, and samples have been taken from Impellizzeri in order to determine whether he may have any communicable diseases that could have been spread via the alleged contamination of food and surfaces.
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