ATLANTIC CITY, NJ - A middle school teacher was arrested in a prostitution scam at an Atlantic City casino, claiming that the whole ordeal was an epic misunderstanding and that she was at the casino “strictly to party.”
The woman, 35-year-old Amanda Crafts, allegedly bamboozled an unsuspecting john on October 9, pinning down the nude man while $1,250 was transferred out of his Apple Pay account. Crafts did not act alone and was joined by 23-year-old Veda Engel, who helped her access the funds by using the man’s cellphone facial-recognition feature, the New York Post reported.
The alleged scheme unfolded at the hotel bar of Caesars Atlantic City, where the unidentified victim met Engel and Crafts, both of Cape May County, according to a criminal complaint. There, he exchanged phone numbers with Engel, who later called the man and invited him to a hotel room at Harrah’s Resort.
The accuser told police that when he arrived at the room, the two women stripped him naked before Crafts held him down and Engel performed a sex act. Engel then abruptly stopped and said, “That’s what you get for your $1,250.” Crafts, who weighs 180 pounds, continued to pin the man down as Engel held up his iPhone to his face to use facial recognition to open his phone, the man said.
Engel then opened Apple Pay and made four separate transfers to her account totaling $1,250, the alleged victim said. However, lawyers for Crafts, a single mother of four and computer teacher at Middle Township Middle School, said she had no part in the alleged theft and did not hold the man down at all, and that she was completely unaware that Engel was allegedly engaging in prostitution.
“I’ve never been to jail,” Crafts told Judge Timothy Maguire at a video hearing on October 10. “I’ve never been arrested before. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.
Crafts’ attorney claims she met Engel and the unidentified john at Caesars that same night, and thought they were going to a hotel room at Harrah’s to keep the party going, unaware that there were any plans to exchange cash for sex.
“Amanda Crafts is highly intelligent and wouldn’t participate in anything like that. She was in the room and wanted to leave and didn’t even realize it was a prostitution thing,” her attorney Charles Peruto Jr. told The Post, adding, “She is mortified.” Crafts was there “strictly to party” and not to participate in any prostitution or scam, he added.
“Maybe the prostitute took advantage of him but my client had nothing to do with it,” the lawyer said. Engel has a previous charge for prostitution from December 2025 after she was accused of offering sex in exchange for $1,000 to an undercover New Jersey State Police detective at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa. She was ordered to pay a summons for that charge.
Crafts and Engel were held at the Atlantic County Justice Facility for six days and were released on October 15. Crafts has worked at Middle Township Middle School since 2016. The school announced that she was “no longer employed by the district,” in a letter to families and staff on October 19.
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