N.J. teacher sent 7,500 pages of often-explicit texts to teen after sexual assaults, prosecutors say

A former Gloucester County teacher accused of sexually assaulting a middle school student continued to exchange thousands of messages with her, often of a sexual nature, after she entered high school, according to prosecutors.

In one of those exchanges, which includes 7,500 pages of transcripts collected by investigators, the former student wrote that the teacher broke him down mentally.

“You destroyed things inside me. You took away my innocence,” he said in one message.

Ashley A. Fisler, 36, of Washington Township, was arrested last week after the former student told investigators he sexually assaulted her multiple times, according to the Gloucester County District Attorney’s Office.

Fisler was working as a teacher at Orchard Valley Middle School in Washington Township at the time, but no longer works as an educator anywhere, prosecutors said.

He emerged from jail via video on Wednesday for a detention hearing, but a decision on whether he would remain behind bars pending the hearing was postponed until Thursday.

Prosecutors said the student went to police in January. Fisler gave a statement to investigators last month denying the allegations.

Defense lawyer Rocco Cipparone argued in court that the prosecution had no evidence of the alleged crimes and based its defense on old texts.

“The selective, suggestive texts read by the prosecution lack context,” he said.

The victim, now an adult, described sexual assaults that occurred at least four times in Fisler’s vehicle and in her classroom in 2021 and 2022, when she was a middle school student, authorities said.

The allegations are supported by 7,500 pages of text messages between Fisler and the victim, Gloucester County Assistant Prosecutor Kylie Finley said Wednesday.

The prosecutor said these messages, in which Fisler reminded the victim that he had sexually assaulted her, were sent from May 2023 to January of this year.

Due to technical limitations, the prosecution did not have messages from the years when the alleged attacks occurred, Finley said.

“These text messages not only demonstrate this defendant’s level of grooming and manipulation, but they also confirm multiple instances of the sexual relationship described by this victim, including specific sexual acts that the victim disclosed to police during her interview,” Finley said. he said.

Even though he was no longer the victim’s teacher and the attacks ended in 2022, Fisler continued to send messages to the student after he entered high school, and those messages highlighted his ongoing illegal behavior with a minor, the prosecutor said.

“In December 2023, the victim admitted to the defendant that he was having a hard time at school because he was experiencing more frequent erections. The defendant’s response was, ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing,'” Finley said.

In another communication, Fisler offered to buy the teen a sex toy, the prosecutor said.

Fisler showed little emotion as he listened to testimony via video link from the jail on Wednesday.

He is charged with six counts of first-degree sexual assault of a minor, one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and one count of second-degree official misconduct.

The incriminating photos allegedly sent between Fisler and the victim in the recovered texts were not found.

“We can’t actually see the images embedded in these text messages, but we can see when an image was sent and we can see its content,” the prosecutor said.

In one of those messages, Finley said, Fisler told the student to send him photos of his genitals.

The texts also show the teenager discussing his mental health issues. Finley said she told Fisler that his behavior was hurting her and called him manipulative and selfish.

“On January 20, 2025, the victim told the defendant: ‘I had to try really hard to rebuild the things you broke inside me. You destroyed the things inside me. You deprived me of my innocence,'” the prosecutor said.

Finley then recounted Fisler’s response.

“The defendant admits to hurting himself countless times and says, quote, ‘I take the blame for all of this,'” Finley said. “He even admits to putting her in positions he shouldn’t have, saying: ‘I feel like I’m forcing you to grow up abnormally fast.’”

Finley said Fisler continued to communicate with the victim, whom he tried to cut off contact with in January of this year.

The prosecutor said the woman also tried to hide evidence of her behavior by deleting old message threads and told police she did so because she was in frequent relationships.

Fisler’s attorney, Cipparone, said all of the texts cited by prosecutors were sent years after the alleged crimes and that no evidence was presented from the years in which the alleged attacks occurred.

“I have not heard the prosecution say that there was any contemporaneous text, footage, or evidence in 2021 that revealed this alleged behavior,” he said.

Cipparone said Fisler agreed to take a polygraph test but was denied the opportunity.

The former student, who said he consulted a lawyer before contacting the police, suggested that there may be a financial reason for his allegations.

In an interview with police, Fisler said he left his teaching job in 2023 because he “blurred the line between himself and another student,” but Cipparone said that involved nothing illegal.

“Ms. Fisler told the police that the reason she left was because a female student had a pimple on her neck. She asked Ms. Fisler to buy make-up to avoid getting into trouble with her family,” the lawyer said. “Miss Fisler did this and said, well, I blurred the line and decided to quit teaching and do other things.”

Fisler, whose maiden name is Sulla, joined the district in 2015 as a social studies teacher at Orchard Valley Middle School, according to a district press release that year.

In 2019, two years before the alleged sexual assaults, another of Fisler’s students wrote an essay for a statewide competition. He describes Fisler as his hero.

She wrote that her teacher was a “protector” who wanted to make sure students felt safe and comfortable at school.

The essay was selected as one of four winning submissions, and Fisler was celebrated by his district.

In an announcement about the winning essay, Orchard Valley’s principal called Fisler “an energetic, dedicated, hard-working teacher who is passionate about teaching social studies.”

In the press release, he called her “living proof that effective educators can make an immediate, positive and lasting impact on children.”

The prosecutor also disclosed additional allegations of inappropriate communications between Fisler and students.

“At least one other family reported to police that the defendant had inappropriate contact with another child who was his student at the time,” Finley said. “And in September 2024, the victim told the defendant that another student, the third child, told people that a teacher from the middle school named Ms. Fisler had sent her bikini photos.”

The prosecutor argued that Fisler should remain in prison, saying his behavior showed he was a danger to others and a flight risk as he faced a long prison sentence.

The aggravated sexual assault charges each carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Fisler is a nearly life-long resident of the area, has strong ties to the area and does not pose a risk if he is released, his lawyer said.

While the court’s public safety assessment recommended he remain in jail, Superior Court Judge William Ziegler said he needed time to review relevant case law before ruling.

The trial is scheduled to continue on Thursday.

Fisler was teaching in the same district he once attended as a student.

He graduated from Washington Township High School in 2007 and earned a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in education from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck.

His student teaching experience included four months at Washington Township High School in 2013, according to his resume posted online.

The district confirmed that Fisler’s employment with the district ends in April 2023.

According to his resume, he founded a business that designs and manufactures custom clothing in June 2023.

The resume stated that as of 2024, he was working part-time in his family’s tree maintenance business.

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