Performing Arts Academy A 'Breeding Ground' For Sexual Predators, Lawsuit Says

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Ocean County Vocational Technical Schools' Performing Arts Academy was a breeding ground that protected sexual predators, a lawsuit filed by a former student alleges.

The 54-page lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Superior Court in Ocean County by a victim of Douglas J. Bollinger, a former teacher at the Performing Arts Academy who has been convicted of sexually touching the student.

It alleges conditions at the school and the mindset of the school's administration created the environment that allowed Bollinger to operate and prioritized protecting PAA's reputation over stopping predators, and that those conditions had existed for more than 20 years.

A message seeking comment on the lawsuit from the Ocean County Vocational-Technical Schools was not immediately answered.

"The PAA operated akin to an all-adult social club or an adult performing art program where the line between students and teachers were beyond blurred and practically nonexistent," the lawsuit alleges.

The atmosphere "openly permitted relationships between minor students and adult teachers, unsupervised isolation with students and teachers, students and teachers spending significant amounts of times together before, during and after school hours, teachers socializing with students both in and outside of school, teachers-student relationship defined more as 'friends', students leaving their academic classes to be alone and/ or socialize with performing arts teachers and the overall lack of any meaningful adult supervision or safeguards whatsoever," the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges Bollinger was not the first teacher or administrator at PAA who assaulted someone, but alleges a teacher was victimized by an administrator, and that two other teachers — Zachary Slater and a second unnamed teacher — groomed and assaulted students.

The lawsuit names the Ocean County Vocational-Technical Schools, PAA and Bollinger, along with Karen Homiek, the district's superintendent, as defendants.

Homiek is accused of shielding known sexual predators, suppressing student complaints and waging "campaigns of relentless retaliation against whistleblowing staff and students," in the law

Alleged history of issues

The lawsuit alleges issues of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior date back more than 20 years at the school, which initially was located in Hangar One at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and moved to a building on the campus of Ocean County College in 2020.

According to the lawsuit, a newly hired teacher in 2005 was sexually assaulted by a PAA administrator during an official school field trip. The administrator, who is not named, followed the teacher into a restroom and "grabbed and fondled (the teacher's) genitals suddenly, aggressively and without consent," the lawsuit alleges.

The teacher reported the assault to Homiek, and the lawsuit alleges Homiek told the teacher that the administrator "wouldn't do that." At one point, the administrator followed the victim to the victim's home seeking a confrontation, but the administrator was never disciplined. The teacher was ostracized and ultimately resigned, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit additionally details a relationship between an unnamed teacher and a student that started when the student was a freshman at PAA.

The relationship "was openly known" about among students, staff and teachers, and became a joke among staff members, complete with crass comments and jokes. Inappropriate behavior was reported on multiple occasions by parents, students and other teachers, the lawsuit said.

Parents were told "we have no control whether a student has a crush on a teacher," and students who reported it were suspended or otherwise punished in 2013, the lawsuit says.

"In fact, the numerous students who spoke up about the inappropriateness of this relationship were charged and punished under the school’s harassment, intimidation and bullying regulations (H.I.B.) for 'bullying' the subject victim/student of Teacher #1," the lawsuit says.

That student and the teacher are now married, and the teacher continues to teach at PAA, the lawsuit says.

Another teacher charged

About the same time as the teacher and student who later married were involved, another teacher at PAA was being reported to the district's administration for inappropriate behavior, the lawsuit alleges.

That teacher, Zachary M. Slater, used his position as the supervisor of the student sound crew to "openly groom and sexually assault, molest, rape, penetrate at least two minor student victims at OCVTS," in incidents that happened sometime between 2013 and 2019, according to the lawsuit.

Slater, who resigned from PAA in 2019, was arrested in 2022 and charged with sexually assaulting a child under age 16 whom he supervised, according to New Jersey court records. He pleaded guilty to the charge in 2023 and was sentenced to probation and sex offender registration requirements, according to New Jersey court records. He forfeited his teaching license in 2024, according to state records.

The lawsuit alleges Slater's behaviors "were open and notorious and 'everyone knew' " but Homiek and the PAA administration did nothing, even after Slater explicitly admitted to sexually abusing students to another teacher, who reported it to Homiek.

"Instead of reporting Slater, Defendant Homiek actively smoothed the matter over and facilitated Slater’s return to the classroom, sweeping his self-admitted child abuse under the
rug from the public, parents and law enforcement," the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges that when Slater was sentenced in the sexual assault case, a PAA guidance counselor wrote a letter to the judge supporting Slater, saying, "The only thing Zach (Slater) is guilty of is falling in love with a girl, and she with him."

Bollinger's assaults

Those earlier situations set the stage for the activities of Bollinger, according to the lawsuit, which says Bollinger assaulted the student more than 20 times over the course of a six months in 2019.

Bollinger, who was arrested in 2024 after the victim reported the assaults to law enforcement, pleaded guilty in late 2024 and was sentenced in February 2025 to probation and required to register as a sex offender under Megan's Law.

The lawsuit alleges Bollinger groomed the victim for a period of time, "putting her 'on a pedestal' and gradually breaking down her personal boundaries under the guise of specialized creative guidance.

That led up to incidents where he grabbed her butt during a school-sanctioned after-school meeting of the "Skills USA" program, and then again after a school-related "Battle of the Bands" event at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park where he cornered her at her vehicle and told the victim, "I can't stop thinking about you," and "we could have so much fun being together, but we need to be smart about this... you can't tell anyone," the lawsuit alleges.

Bollinger isolated her in a storage room and kissed her at the school, and then the behavior escalated, with multiple physical assaults where he fondled her breasts and her genitals, the lawsuit alleges.

In one incident, Bollinger was sitting at his desk and fondling the student when the school's principal walked in, according to the lawsuit. Bollinger "removed his hand from under (the victim's) skirt and the Principal proceeded to place her arm around (the victim) and escort her out of Bollinger’s room," the lawsuit says.

"Said Principal but failed to ask any questions of (the victim) or Bollinger, report this obviously disturbing incident, or conduct any investigation. The Principal did not even ask (the victim) if she was ok ……… (the victim) was simply returned to her academic classroom as if nothing had occurred," the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit goes on to allege that administrators and others involved with PAA were aware there were issues but took no action.

Guidance counselors "had direct reports of the inappropriate behavior and went so far as to confront the teacher in a
private school office. When the teacher simply issued a blanket denial, the guidance counselors failed to execute their absolute statutory duties as mandatory reporters, choosing instead to drop the matter and protect the teacher despite knowing that 'it did not appear that way,' " the lawsuit alleges.

A staff member who filed an official report about inappropriate behavior was ordered to "keep her mouth shut," and other staff members who raised concerns were threatened by higher-level administrators, "enforcing a strict institutional conspiracy of silence to protect the district's public reputation."

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.