Middlesex County Operation Bad Santa Charges 12 Men Including an Elizabeth Teacher and a Youth Program Coordinator

The embed is a prior holiday-themed sting that reused the « Bad Santa » label. It is not body-camera footage from the Middlesex County house.

The men who walked up to a Middlesex County house between December 8 and December 15, 2025, thought a child was waiting inside. Undercover officers from the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit were waiting instead. Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone named the sweep Operation Bad Santa and put twelve men, ages 23 to 65, on a charging sheet that now sits in the county’s criminal calendar. Two of them held jobs that required proximity to teenagers: Joseph Davicsin, a middle school teacher in Elizabeth, and Cameron Ameye, program coordinator for Youth Rise at Passaic County Community College.

The chats did not start at that door. They started on social media and messaging apps where an adult asked a person he believed was a minor to meet for sex. The « child » on the other side of the thread was a cop. When the adult drove to the undercover residence, the meeting ended in handcuffs. Two defendants were picked up after investigators identified them for online child exploitation rather than a knock at the door. No one was injured on scene. The county published the roster the week of December 22. Middlesex County’s own release, People, and News 12 New Jersey carried the same names.

The holiday nickname is what traveled. The part that still matters is that a teacher and a youth-program coordinator were on the same list as men who never had a school ID. Positions of trust are not a charge. They are the reason parents read past the headline. The AEGIS Alliance treats the twelve as accused, not convicted, and keeps the file next to other institution cases in its crime news stack.

The twelve names, towns, and counts

Delpis Reynoso-Castro, 26, of New Brunswick, was charged with second-degree luring and third-degree criminal attempt of endangering sexual conduct with a child. Marcos Aguila, 57, of East Brunswick, drew the same two counts. Jose Leguia, 57, of Old Bridge; Hareshkumar « Harry » Vala, 44, of Dunellen; Vedant Khandelwal, 38, of Bridgewater; and Kevin Knox, 65, of North Brunswick were charged on the same pairing.

Cameron Ameye, 33, of Bloomingdale, the Youth Rise coordinator, was charged with second-degree luring and the third-degree attempt count. Joseph Davicsin, 46, of East Brunswick, the Elizabeth middle school teacher, was charged with the same two counts. His attorney, Michael Chazen, told reporters that Davicsin maintains his innocence and that the public should not treat an accusation as a verdict. The school district did not return comment in the first wave of coverage.

Jorge Mora, 52, of Jackson, was charged with second-degree luring, third-degree criminal attempt of distributing obscene material to a minor, and third-degree criminal attempt of endangering sexual conduct with a child. Akash Shah, 23, of East Brunswick, was charged with second-degree luring, third-degree distributing obscene material to a minor, and third-degree endangering sexual conduct with a child. Raul Angeles, 53, of Asbury Park, was charged only with the third-degree attempt count. James Keating, 59, of Edison, was charged with third-degree criminal attempt of endangering sexual conduct with a child and third-degree distributing obscene material to a minor.

Second-degree luring in New Jersey is not a traffic ticket. It is the count that turns a chat log and a car ride into a state-prison exposure if a jury later agrees with the state. The attempt counts are the legal way to charge a person who never touched a child because the child was never real. That architecture is why ICAC units keep running the same play: the meeting is the proof of intent.

Who sat on the task force, and why the house mattered

The ICAC unit inside the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office led. East Brunswick, Edison, Highland Park, New Brunswick, Monroe, Piscataway, Sayreville, and South River police joined, along with FBI Newark, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. East Brunswick’s chief, Frank LoSacco, called the sweep « a beacon of hope » and « a stark warning. » Stefanie Roddy, then special agent in charge of FBI Newark, said anyone who thinks a county line is cover should look at that roster.

The house was the last room in a conversation that can last days or weeks. Investigators say the men arrived expecting a child. Two others never made that drive because the state says their online conduct was enough to identify and arrest them. Ciccone’s office said the investigation remained open after the announcement and asked the public for more tips. That sentence is not filler. Stings of this type rarely exhaust a county’s queue in one week.

On April 2, 2026, Middlesex County commissioners publicly recognized the multi-agency work. The honor did not resolve the cases. Through late summer 2026 there was no complete set of public trial verdicts or plea bargains covering all twelve names. Some defendants will fight. Some will plead. The charging sheet is still the official record.

Why a teacher and a youth worker change the read

Most of the twelve will be remembered as names and towns. Davicsin and Ameye will be remembered as job titles. Youth Rise is an academic-readiness and career-pathways program at Passaic County Community College. A middle school classroom in Elizabeth is a room full of children who did not choose the adult at the front. Neither job is proof of the chat. Both jobs are why school boards, college administrators, and parents now have a separate file to open.

The AEGIS Alliance has tracked that pattern in other rooms that were supposed to be safe. The El Cajon Bible teacher case and the Mobile detective arrest sit in the same category for a reason: access is not a defense, and a title is not a conviction. Readers who follow Washington State’s later Operation Guardian sweep will recognize the same ICAC grammar. Different state. Same architecture.

New Jersey’s second-degree luring statute exists because the legislature decided that traveling to meet a child you recruited online is already the crime, even if the child is an officer. Defense lawyers will argue entrapment, identity, and the difference between fantasy and a car in a driveway. Prosecutors will put the messages and the arrival on a screen. Juries will decide. Until then the presumption of innocence is not a courtesy. It is the rule Ciccone printed at the bottom of her own release.

What the open investigation still wants

Ciccone asked anyone with information to call the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit at (732)*******00. That number is for tips, not for internet verdicts. The men remain presumed innocent unless a court says otherwise. The teacher is still a defendant. The youth coordinator is still a defendant. The ten other names are still defendants.

Holiday branding made the file travel in December. The work after the press conference is slower: discovery, motions, possible pleas, possible trials, and the question of whether any of the twelve held other chats that never reached that house. FBI Newark’s line was that people who hunt children on apps should expect a coordinated answer. The coordinated answer in Middlesex County was twelve arrests in six days and a task force that crossed municipal and federal lines.

The AEGIS Alliance will keep the charging list attached to the story rather than reducing it to a nickname. Operation Bad Santa is a label. The record is twelve men, a house, a set of apps, and a county that says the chats were not a joke.