New Jersey teacher Amanda Crafts is accused of helping restrain a man while another woman used his face to unlock his iPhone and transfer $1,250. Her attorney says Crafts had no idea a robbery or prostitution arrangement was happening and was simply there to party.
An Atlantic City casino night has turned into one of the strangest criminal complaints of the month: a middle-school computer teacher, an alleged prostitution arrangement, Face ID and four Apple Pay transfers totaling $1,250. The defense position, in wonderfully concise form, is that Amanda Crafts was basically just trying to have a night out.
Atlantic City police say the alleged victim met Crafts and Veda Engel at a casino bar before later going to a room at Harrah’s Resort. According to the complaint, the man says he was stripped and restrained while Engel performed a sexual act.
The allegation then becomes extremely 2026. Investigators say the man’s face was used to unlock his iPhone, after which four Apple Pay transactions totaling $1,250 were sent from his account to Engel.
The man told authorities the transfers were not authorized. According to reporting on the complaint, Engel allegedly told him, “That’s what you get for $1,250,” turning what had already been a disastrous casino night into a sentence likely to appear in every future summary of the case.
Crafts, 35, was charged with robbery and conspiracy, while Engel also faces a prostitution charge. Both women were held for several days and later released pending further court proceedings.
Crafts denies knowingly participating in the alleged robbery or any prostitution arrangement. Her attorney, Charles Peruto Jr., says she did not restrain the man, did not take his money and was essentially “there to party,” a phrase now carrying an almost heroic amount of legal weight.
Peruto has said Crafts voluntarily turned over her cellphone and argues that her activity on the device supports the claim that she was not participating in what prosecutors describe. He also says the two women had only met that evening and that Crafts did not understand what Engel allegedly intended.
That version is sharply different from the complaint, which places Crafts in the room and accuses her of physically helping restrain the man. The case therefore hinges on more than the absurd headline details; prosecutors will need to establish what Crafts knew, what she did and whether the alleged victim’s account is corroborated by digital or physical evidence.
The employment consequences arrived faster than the criminal case. Middle Township Public Schools told families on October 19 that Crafts was no longer employed by the district, while emphasizing that the allegations did not involve students or conduct at school.
Crafts had worked as a computer teacher, which adds one unavoidable bit of dark irony to a case involving facial recognition and Apple Pay. That does not make the allegations funny for the man who says he was robbed, but it does make the technology portion of the police report feel almost aggressively on-brand.
The school district has declined to discuss personnel details beyond confirming that she is no longer on staff. Crafts remains presumed innocent, and her attorney is openly challenging the state’s version of what happened inside the hotel room.
For now, the case is a collision of casino nightlife, digital payments and two completely different stories about the same room. One side says there was a coordinated robbery; the other says one defendant was simply there to party and had no idea what she had walked into.
That disagreement will eventually be tested in court. Until then, “middle-school computer teacher accused in Face ID casino robbery” is already a headline that sounds like three unrelated local stories accidentally merged into one.
