Patrick Lott, Former Bernardsville School Administrator, Gets 6 Years in Prison

Patrick Lott, who was in the position of vice-principal of the Bernardsville Middle School when he was arrested nearly two years ago on accusations of filming naked boys in the shower at Immaculata High School, was sentenced Friday morning to six years in state prison.

State Superior Court Judge Julie Marino said she would honor the terms of the plea agreement reached with the Somerset County Prosecutor's office for a six-year term.

The judge told Lott, pale and thin in prison orange, that if he had been convicted after a trial his sentence would have been "far more than that."

She told Lott, "Your conduct perverts everything that is good and right in education."

"These were children who loved and trusted you," Marino said of the student athletes whom Lott had required to take showers at the school, where he had installed a hidden camera.

Following the sentencing, Lott's attorney, James Wronko, said his client would not appeal the sentence.

Wronko added that Lott would be eligible for parole after serving two years. Lott, a Somerville resident, already has served almost two years in Somerset County Jail since his arrest in December 2011, but he said he does not anticipate he would be paroled at this time.

Instead, he said that Lott, will be assigned to a state prison facility by the Department of Education.

Lott was a 54-year-old serving as a volunteer sports coach at Immaculata High School in Somerville at the time of the filming, which he admitted in a guilty plea in May on various accounts of endangering the welfare of a child and filming without consent.

He was arrested in December 2011 following an investigation on a tip of inappropriate behavior that eventually led to the discovery of films of the boys in the shower at his home. He was indicted in June 2012 on 91 counts of various charges, including invasion of privacy and endangering the welfare of a child.

Reading a summary of Lott's life, and the events leading to his arrest, the judge recounted that Lott had grown up in the Millington section of Long Hill Township, and graduated from Watchung Hills Regional High School in 1975. Lott claimed he had been molested by a priest when he was in a fourth grade, according to the summary.

Nevertheless in his statement before his sentencing, Lott apologized to the players, their families, his own family and to the community at Immaculata High School, which he called a "great place."

Lott specified he was responsible for his own actions. "All I can ask for is forgiveness from my players and my families and my friends."

Wronko later said that Lott still is married to his wife.

No films or pictures released on Internet, attorney said.

Wronko also said his client wanted to at least assure the players and their families that he had never placed the photos or videos on the Internet, or in any way released them to the public.

"No videos ever left his possession," he said.

In asking the judge to reduce the sentence to five years, Wronko pointed out that Lott had no prior record.  He also said that that although Lott committed a "breach of trust" through the access he had to players, no actual harm occurred to the players until they learned that they had been filmed nude while showering.

"If Mr. Lott was not arrested, the victims never would know this had occurred," Wronko said. He likened Lott to a "Peeping Tom" in which the victim is unaware of being watched until seeing that he or she is being watched through a window. He said Lott had never directly posed or approached a child at home.

He said "a litany" of people had written letters to the court in support of Lott, even knowing of what he had been accused, and of the charges to which he had pleaded guilty.

The prosecutor for Somerset County at the sentencing, however, Laurie Head-Melillo, argued that Lott was a "textbook" example of a predator who cultivated the trust of students and their parents to gain access to the children. 

"Through several years of that time, he actually was secretly taping them in the showers for their own purposes," she said.

Head-Melillo said that 29 families, and the players, had come into her office feeling confident and trusting before seeing the films of their sons or themselves, and had left with their ability to trust in others shattered.

"Twenty-nine kids left our office not being sure they could ever trust anyone."

She said described Lott as "manipulative, narcissistic, predatory and criminal."

She also accused Lott of continuing to "minimize issues" in his discussions with a psychologist.

During her comments, Marino said that, "It does not appear to me from anything you said, Mr. Lott, that you truly own [up] to what you did."

"This was a crime. There were victims of these crimes," Marino said.

She said a fundamental aspect of education is the ability of a teacher or educator to have a "profound and life-altering impact" on students, and the trust that parents place in teachers.

The judge also did not buy a defense given that Lott had taped the students to make sure that they were taking showers, and not bullying each other.

"You did it for your gratification," Marino said. She added there was no requirement for students to take showers.

In her summary of the case, Marino said it was about two years ago that the Immaculata administration had received an anonymous tip about supposed inappropriate behavior by Lott, which included him showering along with students.

She said the only mitigating factor in his favor was that he had no prior record.

"And frankly — there's no record — that's all I can say to that."

Marino acknowledged the plea agreement was made to spare students from having to testify at a trial.

"But were you to have been convicted on these counts after a trial, I can tell you I certainly never wouldd have been sentencing you to six years. I would be sentencing you to far more than that," Marino told Lott.

After Lott's arrest, an investigation and search of facilities at the Bernardsville Middle School and Bernards High School, where Lott also had been employed before becoming an assistant principal, found no evidence of hidden cameras or evidence of wrongdoing at the middle school and Bernards High School.

Wronko said after the sentencing that the allegations only involved Wronko's role at Immaculata High School, where he had previously been a teacher in the 1990s before entering public school education.