Former aide pleads not guilty to child rape charges

Jun. 11—SALEM — A former special education aide pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that she sexually abused a teenage boy she'd been assigned to tutor while working at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Lynette Occhipinti, 54, of Salem, is facing four counts of rape of a child. She was indicted in April.

She is accused of inviting the accuser to her Barnes Road home, where he and other teens would consume alcohol and drugs. Eventually she began engaging in sexual acts with the teenager — after, he alleged, her now-deceased husband provided him with steroids to make him larger and stronger.

The allegations first became public in a lawsuit filed two years ago by the now-adult accuser in a civil lawsuit against the city of Peabody and a number of former employees, including Occhipinti's former supervisor (who was later dismissed from the suit). Occhipinti was not named as a defendant in that suit but her alleged conduct was at the center of it.

That civil suit has been put on hold while the Essex District Attorney's office presented the case to a grand jury.

Prosecutor Katherine Fennel Kelly did not seek cash bail for Occhipinti, who appeared in Salem Superior Court Friday in response to a summons.

Instead, she asked Judge Jeffrey Karp to impose a series of pretrial conditions, including that Occhipinti have no contact with any child other than her own, that she not work in any job where she comes into contact with minors, that she not leave the state without permission, and that she not use alcohol or any illegal drugs, a condition that will be monitored with random testing.

The judge agreed to set those conditions.

A private attorney, Joseph Provenzano, appeared in court with Occhipinti for her arraignment and had previously agreed to the conditions requested by the prosecutor. However, he told Karp that he would not continue to represent Occhipinti following Friday's hearing.

She was expected to be interviewed to determine whether she qualifies for a court-appointed attorney.

A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Sept. 10.

In the years after she worked for the Peabody schools, Occhipinti, who later worked under the name Lynette Chaput after remarrying, worked for the North Shore Education Consortium in Beverly and in the Ipswich Public Schools.

Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, by email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter at @SNJulieManganis.