Mary Kay Letourneau
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Mary Kay Fualaau (born January 30, 1962, former married name Mary Kay Letourneau; maiden name Schmitz) is a former schoolteacher known for having a sexual relationship, and two children, with her underage pupil. She was convicted of statutory rape and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
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[edit] Background
Mary Kay's father was John G. Schmitz, a Roman Catholic U.S. Congressman from Orange County, California and a professor at Santa Ana College. He was generally considered one of the more conservative members of the House, and ran for President of the United States in 1972 on the ultra-conservative American Independent Party ticket.
Her mother Mary Schmitz was a homemaker and feminist activist. Mary Kay is one of seven children born to John and Mary, and she has two half-siblings that were the result of a longtime affair between her father and his mistress. One of her brothers served as White House counsel in the George H. W. Bush administration. Another, Joseph E. Schmitz, was appointed Inspector General of the Department of Defense by George W. Bush. Mary Kay Schmitz married Steve Letourneau on June 30, 1984. The couple had two daughters and two sons together.
[edit] The teacher-student relationship
Letourneau first met Vili Fualaau (born June 26, 1983) when he was a student in her second grade class at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Washington. He was eight years old; she was 28. She was his teacher again in the sixth grade, and she had sex with him during the summer of 1996, when he was 13. Her husband became aware of the situation and revealed it to family members when he read their letters to each other in February 1997. His cousin reported the relationship to local child protection services.
[edit] Legal matters
On February 26, 1997, Letourneau was arrested for statutory rape, called "child rape" in Washington. Four months later, she gave birth to daughter Audrey Lokelani, whose father was Letourneau's student. On August 7, 1997, she pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree statutory rape. She was sentenced to 89 months in prison by Judge Linda Lau.
The prison term was suspended and she was sentenced to serve six months in county jail and enroll in a three-year sexual deviancy treatment program. She was released from jail early (January 1, 1998) for good behavior, and as a condition was forbidden to see Fualaau; however, on February 3, 1998, police discovered Letourneau in a car with Fualaau and arrested her for violating the conditions of her suspended sentence. She had also failed to comply with her sexual deviancy treatment program. In the car police found $6,500 in cash, baby clothes, and a passport, indicating that she planned to leave the country. The original sentence of seven and a half years was reimposed.
In March, 1998, prison officials discovered that Letourneau was pregnant with another child by Fualaau. Letourneau and Fualaau's second daughter, Alexis Georgia, was born in Tacoma on October 16, 1998. Hours after the birth, Mary Kay Letourneau was returned to prison. In November, 1999 Letourneau was detained in solitary confinement for six months because she smuggled letters to Vili out of the prison. In January, 2001, Letourneau's father died. She asked to attend his funeral, but her request was denied.
Letourneau and her husband Steve were divorced while she was in prison in May, 1999, and Steve was given custody of their four children. He remarried and moved the family to Alaska.
In 2000, Fualaau's family sued the town where he attended school for emotional suffering, lost wages, and the costs of rearing his two children, claiming the school had failed to protect him from Letourneau. The jury ruled against them and no damages were awarded.
[edit] Life after prison
Letourneau was released on parole on August 4, 2004. Two days later, Fualaau, who was by then 21, applied to the court to lift the no-contact order; the request was granted. Letourneau and Fualaau were married on May 20, 2005 in the Seattle suburb of Woodinville at a winery. Access to the ceremony was strictly controlled by the television show Entertainment Tonight, which paid for exclusive access. The former Mary Kay Letourneau now goes by the name Mary Fualaau.
[edit] References
- Letourneau, Mary Kay; Vili Fualaau (1999). Un seul crime, l'amour (Only one crime, love). Paris, France: Robert Laffont. ISBN 2-221-08812-3.
- McElroy, W. (2004). No panic over school child abuse. Commentary: The Independent Institute. (Request reprint).
- Olsen, Gregg (1999). If Loving You is Wrong. New York, NY: St. Martins: True Crime.
- Robinson, J. (2001). The Mary Kay Letourneau Affair. Overland Park, KS: Leathers Publishing.
- Dress, C. (2004). Mass With Mary: The Prison Years. Trafford, BC, Canada: Trafford Publishing.
[edit] Filmography
- All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story, a 2000 TV movie starring Penelope Ann Miller in the title role
- Mary Kay Latourneau: Forbidden Desire - a Court TV documentary
- "Mary Kay Letourneau: The E! True Hollywood Story" - an E! THS episode
- "Mary Kay Letourneau: Out of Bounds" - an A&E Biography episode
[edit] Sound tracks
Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule wrote a song about Letourneau, "Mary Kay", appearing on her album Pink Pearl.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- [1] Seduced in the Classroom
- [2] Double Standard: The Bias Against Male Victims of Sexual Abuse
- [3] Inside the Mind of a Female Sex Offender
- [4] Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature
- [5] Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct, & Exploitation (SESAME)
- [6] Crime Library studies of the case
