Quotes from some articles about

Mary Kay Letourneau

Letourneau Set Free, Ex-Student Wants Her 

By REBECCA COOK
April 8, 2004

GIG HARBOR, Wash. (AP) - Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher convicted for having sex with a sixth-grade student, was released from prison Wednesday, and her 21-year-old victim quickly sought to get back together with her.

Vili Fualaau is challenging a court order that bars Letourneau from contacting him as part of her child rape sentence. He says he is an adult and can pick his own friends, especially the mother of his two children. [...]

Letourneau, 42, slipped out of prison quietly after midnight and was met by a crowd that included dozens of media outlets and a group of rowdy teenage boys waving signs that said "I'm 18, Baby!'' and "Take Me Home.''

Letourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in suburban Des Moines and an unhappily married mother of four in 1996, when she began having sex with the sixth-grader. [...]

When Letourneau was arrested in 1997, she was already pregnant with Fualaau's daughter. Though she professed her love for the boy, a judge sentenced her to six months in jail for second-degree child rape, and ordered her to stay away from him.

A month after Letourneau was released, she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car. She was sent to prison for 7½ years, and gave birth to Fualaau's second daughter behind bars.

Letourneau's two daughters with Fualaau are now 6 and 7. [...] 

The sentencing order has allowed Letourneau to have contact with her children by Fualaau. Letourneau has said she would consider having more children with him. [...]

"Nothing could have kept the two of them apart,'' said Seattle attorney Anne Bremner, who struck up a friendship with Letourneau in 2002 and spoke to her recently by phone. ``She's always said this love is eternal and endless, and I think she stands by that.''

[...] That Fualaau and Letourneau would want to get together was no surprise to some who know her well.

"She has a personal need to get back together with him to prove to the world this is a love story and not a crime story,'' said Gregg Olsen, who wrote a book about Letourneau's case. "Part of Mary Letourneau will never let go of this love.''

Fualaau told People magazine recently that he would like to reunite with Letourneau, but wants to take things slowly. [...] 

"I don't know what my feelings are right now,'' Fualaau told KING-TV in Seattle on Tuesday, acknowledging he was ``kind of nervous.'' 
"But I know that I do love her,'' he said.

Letourneau may also want to tell her own story. A state appeals court ruled in 2000 that Letourneau may sell and profit from her story.

Teacher's Lover at 12 Still Loves Her 

 By Sue Pleming, 21 August 2004, Reuters

Now an adult, the former 12-year-old lover of Mary Kay Letourneau said on Thursday he still loved his ex-teacher and hoped they could be reunited now that she was out of prison.

Letourneau, 42, left prison in Washington state on Wednesday after serving seven years for raping her sixth-grade student, Vili Fualaau, with whom she had two children. 

In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, Fualaau, who is now 21, said he still loved Letourneau and had asked the judge to lift a lifetime "no contact" order so the two could be reunited. "I can't be fully happy without her," said Fualaau. Asked whether even after not seeing her for seven years, he was still in love with Letourneau, Fualaau said: "Yes I am."

Their affair, begun when Letourneau was 34 and Fualaau just 12, shocked the world and sparked a barrage of media coverage, including books and a television film. Fualaau has denied he was a victim and said the two were "separated without choice." 

[...]

 Fualaau said he constantly thought about what it would be like to see Letourneau again.

 "What am I going to say? Am I going to hug her first, am I going to say something nice? Say something romantic? Is she going to run to me or who is going to run to who?" he said. "I want to see who she is and if she is still the same person I fell in love with," he added.

Fualaau's mother has custody of their two children, who were allowed frequent contact with Letourneau in prison. Fualaau said he realized people were cynical about their relationship and said he was often urged to go out and meet girls his own age. 

"People say there are a lot of other girls out there ... but other relationships have not made me happy," he said. Asked whether he thought the relationship with Letourneau had been worth it, he replied: "I don't know yet. There's still more to come."

Letourneau engaged to 21-year-old former student

http://courttv.com/people/2004/1012/letourneau2_cnn.html 
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005 - Updated Oct. 12, 2004

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) — Mary Kay Letourneau, the former schoolteacher jailed for more than seven years for having sex with a 13-year-old student, says she and the now-grown former student are engaged to be married.

LeTourneau, appearing Monday night on "Larry King Live," also said that, at the time, she didn't know that having sex with a sixth-grader was a felony. LeTourneau was 34 when the relationship began, in 1996.

The former student, Vili Fualaau, is now 21. LeTourneau is the mother of his two children.

[...] The former schoolteacher made international headlines when she was arrested not once but twice for her relationship with the underage boy. After her first arrest, LeTourneau pleaded guilty to second-degree child rape and was sentenced to six months in jail.

With credit for time served and good behavior, LeTourneau was released early but ordered not to have contact with the boy.

Just weeks later, a police officer came upon the pair in a parked car. A judge reimposed LeTourneau's original 89-month sentence.

[...] She [...] said that she and Fualaau, from the beginning of their relationship, have always shared "a deep spiritual oneness."

"We had a really compatible sense of humor," she said. "And just our perspective on life ..."

LeTourneau, who told King she hopes to begin working with incarcerated women, said she believes her life had been "blessed."

"I'm healthy," she said. "My children are healthy. And I still have a mother. And I come from a very loving family. And I have Vili."