In May of 2024 YULA High School for Boys, a Los Angeles based Orthodox boys high school, sent a letter to its parent body informing them that a teacher had been fired for engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship with two students. While YULA did say that the allegations had been reported to the authorities, they failed to name the teacher or her position.
In its first post about the letter on June 9th, ZA’AKAH shared that the teacher referenced in the letter was Julie Tichon, the director of academic support.
Tichon was later arrested in August and charged with three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of oral copulation of a person under 18. Earlier this week Tichon pleaded no contest to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of oral copulation of a person under 18, and was sentenced to probation and sex offender registry for a minimum of 10 years.
While the criminal charges were related to her abuse of just one child, a second alleged victim filed a lawsuit against YULA in 2024 alleging that he was repeatedly sexually abused by Tichon between 2020 and 2024. According to the complaint, Plaintiff first met with Tichon, who was the director of academic support, in 2020 because he had been diagnosed with ADHD. At YULA’s direction, according to the complaint, Plaintiff met with Tichon several times a week.
Sometime after that, the complaint alleges, Tichon began grooming Plaintiff by showing him special attention, giving him compliments, spending one-on-one time with him to try and become friends, and manipulating Plaintiff to confide in Tichon about his family and emotional state.
Tichon allegedly began sexually abusing Plaintiff shortly afterwards by showing Plaintiff nude pictures of herself, brushing her thigh against his, asking Plaintiff about his girlfriends and sexual history, telling Plaintiff that she would give him a better blowjob than other girls his age, describing to Plaintiff her sexual encounters with a number of men in pornographic detail, sending Plaintiff graphic pornographic content of herself, and performing oral sex on Plaintiff despite him repeatedly telling her that he didn’t want her to touch him.
In addition to the alleged grooming and sexual abuse, the complaint alleges that Tichon exhibited further disturbing, sexually harassing behavior toward Plaintiff by driving to his house and insisting on seeing him after Plaintiff said he didn’t want to see her, calling Plaintiff’s mother to interrogate her about Plaintiff and feigning confusion about why he didn’t want to see her, telling other people she was in a relationship with Plaintiff, stalking and attempting to contact Plaintiff on social media, and threatening Plaintiff that if he ever reported her she would commit suicide and/or get him in trouble with YULA.
Plaintiff alleges that YULA failed to properly institute policies that would have protected him from Tichon, failed to properly supervise her, and failed to investigate known misconduct by her. According to the complaint rumors were circulating among YULA students as early as the 2020-2021 school year about Tichon’s misconduct with students. According to the complaint YULA allowed Tichon to spend time with students unsupervised, allowed her to give students rides in her vehicle, and failed to put in place any trainings for students and teachers or policies designed to prevent abuse. The complaint further alleges that during the period when the abuse was allegedly happening, YULA received a report that Tichon had engaged in a sexual relationship with a married parent at the school and failed to investigate it.
Nina Berman responds on FB: “When I was at YULA many many years ago Rabbi Tendler was sexually abusing my friends.”
Ari Rubin: “It should be noted that this wasn’t a “day under 18″ type of situation (which would still be very wrong because of her position of power). It started when he was 14. She’s a sexual predator and thankfully is being treated as such.”
Jay Sorbo posts: “I hope this will put some fear into TPTB at Bais Yakov in LA. I pray daily that one of the victims of their admin will have the courage come forward.”
