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	Men Can Aid Bayley-Ellard Accuser Judge Says They Can Testify about Sex Abuse By Peggy Wright Daily Record December 7, 2007 http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071207/COMMUNITIES26/712070342/1203 A jury can hear claims by two men that former Bayley-Ellard High School Principal Frank Mattiace was sexually inappropriate with them if he goes to trial on charges of fondling a student at the Madison-based Catholic school in 2003, a judge ruled on Thursday. Superior Court Judge John J. Harper in Morristown issued a written decision that allows Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Melanie Smith to introduce so-called "prior bad acts" by Mattiace at his trial on charges of child endangerment and criminal sexual contact against a 17-year-old student. The school since has closed for financial reasons. No date has been set for Mattiace, a 71-year-old married Montville resident, to go on trial. Defense lawyer Gerard Hanlon contends that the Bayley-Ellard accuser is a psychologically troubled person who was kicked out of several schools before his admission to the private school in 2003. One of the two special witnesses that Harper will allow to testify is a former Bayley-Ellard teacher who says that Mattiace forced him into a sexual relationship that lasted from July 1997 to Dec. 31, 2001. This teacher contends that he gave in to unwanted overtures because he was noncertified and was afraid that he would lose his job if he resisted. This teacher is the alleged victim of sexual assault for which Mattiace is supposed to be prosecuted after his first trial. The state will be able to use Mattiace's alleged "prior bad acts" with the two other men to help prove its case that Mattiace knew he was acting with purpose in a sexual manner toward the student in 2003. The judge's ruling is the result of a two-day hearing in October, when he heard from the former teacher about forced sex and from another Bayley-Ellard student who claimed that Mattiace never made overt advances but talked to him about sexual matters in a way that made the student uncomfortable. The prosecutor's office wanted to call three witnesses at the first trial to show "prior bad acts," but Harper ruled against testimony being offered by a former janitor who worked with Mattiace when he was the principal some 10 years ago at the Allegra School for autistic children in Hanover. The now-ex-janitor claimed that Mattiace exposed himself, stroked his thigh with a walkie-talkie antenna and made sexual remarks to him. The judge found that the janitor's experience with Mattiace was too far in the past to be admissible, but that the other two witnesses had more recent alleged encounters with Mattiace that were similar to the victim-grooming practices the state says he used on the 17-year-old in 2003. Peggy Wright can be reached at (973) 267-1142 or: pwright@gannett.com
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