Teacher loses job after Atlantic City hotel robbery arrest

In a hotel room at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City on Oct. 9, 2026, Veda Engel stopped a sexual act and said, according to the affidavit, “That’s what you get for $1,250.” Amanda Crafts held the man down while Engel used facial recognition to unlock his phone and move money out of his Apple Pay account in four separate transactions that totaled that sum, police said.

The victim had met the women earlier at a bar at Caesars Atlantic City. Engel, 23, of Cape May, invited him to the room after agreeing to a sex act for money, authorities said. Once inside, the women allegedly stripped him and physically restrained him to the bed. Engel performed the act, then delivered the line about the money. A police detective wrote in the affidavit that the victim “stated that these transactions were made without his consent in exchange for sexual acts.”

Crafts, 35, of Wildwood, was charged with robbery and conspiracy, also reported as second-degree theft and conspiracy to commit robbery. Engel was charged with robbery, conspiracy, and prostitution. Breaking AC reported that Engel had been charged with prostitution the prior year. Both women were held at the Atlantic County jail and released Thursday. A pre-indictment conference is set for Nov. 18.

Crafts was a computer teacher at Middle Township Middle School in Cape May County. Public records put her 2025 salary with the district at $63,668. At her detention hearing before Judge Christine Smith, she identified her profession twice.

“I’m a teacher,” Crafts told the judge.

“You’re a teacher?” Judge Christine Smith asked.

“I’m a teacher,” Crafts answered, and raised the prospect of returning to work. She also told the court, “I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been arrested before. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She said she has four children and worried about who would get them to school while she was locked up.

The wire account of her defense is plain. Crafts’ attorney denies she restrained the man or knew of any plan to steal from him, saying she was distracted by her phone and went out to party. Downbeach News reported the attorney’s position that she was “there to party” and on her phone, not paying attention to what was happening. The record gives no separate quote from a named attorney beyond that framing, and Engel’s attorney, Jordan Barbone, could not immediately be reached when NJ.com sought comment.

That denial sits against the affidavit’s sequence: restraint, the facial-recognition unlock, four Apple Pay transfers, and Engel’s reported remark tying the act to the exact dollar figure taken. The victim’s account, as the detective recorded it, is that the transfers were made without his consent. Second-degree theft and conspiracy to commit robbery are not lifestyle footnotes. They are charges that test whether force, restraint, and digital access to another person’s accounts will be treated as the serious property crimes the statutes describe.