Word: letourneau
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...considers herself the victim of a collision of law and love. But if Mary Letourneau is a complex character in a complicated situation, is she any less guilty? Her new lawyer--a hotshot New Englander with an accent and a Ph.D.--is concocting an appeal in secret. More disclosures are sure to come, and several books are in the works. But could a mountain of paper make what she did O.K.? Is there any way to defend Mary? The key may lie in the meanderings of her heart...
There was a moment last year when Letourneau had some time to start a journal for Audrey so that when the little girl is older, she can understand this mess. At that time, last summer, the future didn't look so bleak to Letourneau. She was still talking to her other four children, her "angels," even though they were moving to Alaska with their dad Steven. True, her lawyer, David Gehrke, was telling her she had to plead guilty to "rape of a child." Such a ridiculous charge, she thought. Why couldn't everyone realize that Vili had come...
Within weeks of these musings, brutal reality set in. In August, Letourneau was taken into custody; in November, she was sentenced to seven years and five months in prison for having sex with Vili. And though Judge Linda Lau initially suspended the sentence, her leniency imposed an impossible condition: Letourneau must not have contact with Vili. In February, Lau learned that police had caught Mary and Vili together. Livid, she reimposed the sentence and sent Letourneau to prison...
...normal kid with school pressures, three older siblings, a hard-working mom and a dad in prison, and now--he still couldn't believe it sometimes--a baby. Vili has had trouble at school, and he was arrested on a minor robbery charge last year. Few people listened. Letourneau, his soul mate...
...Mary fell in love with. She had met him years before, in her second-grade class, and quickly noticed his talents. He had noticed her too, and he flirted with her throughout sixth grade. Kids get crushes on teachers all the time--and, of course, most are rebuffed--but Letourneau had entered a fragile period. In October 1995, her father, retired G.O.P. Congressman John Schmitz, had disclosed his terminal cancer. As Mary later told a psychiatrist, she felt he had died already. "She felt she died too," says Dr. Julie Tybor Moore. Her father has always been a rock, even...