Camden Principal Facing Theft Charges Over Sunglasses

By Alicia Cruz

The Black Urban Times

A February trip to the Cherry Hill, New Jersey mall has a Haddonfield principal on unpaid leave from his job and may lead to his termination.

Claudio Cerullo, principal of Christ the King regional School, turned himself into police on Tuesday who had issued a criminal summons for the disgraced administrator.
He was processed, released and is scheduled for a screening hearing in Camden County on March 31.

Cerullo, 40, has been charged with theft, theft by deception and impersonation of a public official.
The criminal charges stem from Cerullo's trip to a mall in February after he entered the Solstice store in South Jersey requesting credit for a $291.00 pair of sunglasses he purchased at another store.

When asked for his credit card and identification to place the money back onto his credit card, the clerk said Cerullo put his wallet on the counter and displayed a badge that the clerk believed was an FBI identification.

After allegedly engaging in a conversation regarding "that," the clerk stated that Cerullo said he wanted glasses that made him look "less like a cop."

Cerullo's alleged statement, coupled with the identification and the subsequent conversation led the clerk to believe that Mr. Cerullo was an FBI agent, said Cherry Hill Police Lt. William Kushina.

The clerk left Cerullo at the counter trying on other sunglasses while he helped another customer. When the clerk returned, Cerullo and the pricey Giorgio Armani shades had disappeared.

Cherry Hill police say the entire scam was caught on the store's surveillance camera. After an investigation, it was determined that the sunglasses Cerullo returned were Prada sunglasses, approximately six-years-old and valued at a mere $30.

This isn't the first time the shamed school administrator has been under fire concerning integrity centered matters. In 1998, Cerullo, then a teacher at a Bangor Area School District, was forced to resign his position after officials learned he forged documents in his personnel file.

After being hired in 1998 as assistant principal at William Annin Middle School in Somerset County, officials there became aware of Cerullo's questionable conduct at Bangor. He resigned from that job under the same cloud of doubt yet continued to serve on the Easton school board until 2001.
According to the Camden Diocese, Cerullo has only been working at the school since September 2009 and was on unpaid leave from Christ the King Regional School pending the outcome of the charges as of last week.

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