Lebanon Iznogood: White US-Born NJ Teacher is Facing 17 Charges of Sex Abuse

He's no immigrant. Not even a migrant. Yet Otto Becken is a child rapist. Because he's a US-born American with white skin, he's untouchable for several decades, like Catholic priests and Evangelical "reverends". From the elite race of this country.

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Sexual abuse claims against former N.J. teacher reach 17 as more victims sue the district
Matthew Enuco
Sat, November 1, 2025

Ten more people have come forward claiming a former teacher in the Cherry Hill school district sexually assaulted them while they were students at James F. Cooper Elementary School in the 1970s and 1980s.

In total, 17 people have filed legal claims that Otto Becken, a former sixth grade teacher at the school, sexually abused them as students at the elementary school between 1974 and 1984. Becken pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from some of the allegations more than 40 years ago. He died in 2011.

The first lawsuits were filed in 2023, when two former students sued, claiming the district was aware of the risk Becken posed to young students.

Four more former students filed suits against the district in April, claiming Becken sexually assaulted them inside and outside the school, including during lunch periods and a week-long camping trip, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Jeffrey Fritz and Derek Braslow.

All six previous lawsuits remain pending and have been combined with the 10 new claims, according to Fritz.

Attorneys for the Cherry Hill school district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The four lawsuits filed in April claim district administrators knew that Becken posed a risk to students but did nothing to protect them and failed to report concerning behavior to state authorities, court documents show.

The claims filed this week allege that Becken’s behavior was reported to the school’s former principal and characterized as “wrestling or playing a game,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said.

One girl, a sixth-grade student, complained to administrators that Becken touched her breasts and buttocks in 1978, the complaint alleges.

Other complaints include a 1979 report from a male student about his fear of Becken, the school’s documented knowledge of Becken’s use of sexual language and profanity in the classroom, and the former principal’s direct observation of Becken sexually abusing a boy in a classroom.

School officials failed to report Becken’s actions to state investigators until 1984, according to the complaints.

Becken was hired by the Cherry Hill school district in 1970 to be a sixth-grade teacher and remedial reading teacher, but by 1977, district administrators had admonished Becken to draw clear lines between himself and students, Fritz and Braslow argue in the complaints.

Under an agreement with the district, Becken was permitted to resign from his teaching position in the Cherry Hill school district in 1984 and forfeit his teaching certificate, Fritz and Braslow said.

Becken’s resignation was effective Jan. 8, 1985, the district said in court documents.

Becken was charged with three counts each of sexual assault and endangering, abuse and neglect in August 1984, court records show.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault with a child under the age of 13 in 1985, court records show.

Court records do not indicate a sentence issued to Becken after his guilty plea. Becken died in Pennsylvania in 2011, according to court documents.

Chuck Wicker, now 54, was one of the two people who filed the initial lawsuit against the school district in 2023.

Wicker said in the complaint that the sexual abuse started when Becken invited him to eat lunch in the classroom to get extra reading help. The abuse continued, the complaint alleges, occurring in a private area of the classroom during lunch periods.

Becken also sexually abused Wicker and other students on a week-long camping trip in the Pinelands, the complaint says.

“Like so many others, it took me a while to come forward but it will have been worth it if it will help protect children in New Jersey,” Wicker said in an earlier statement.

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