Washington Teacher to Wed Former Student She Raped
14 February 2005
REUTERS
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - Former teacher Mary Letourneau, who served seven years in prison for having sex with her former sixth-grade student, is planning to marry him, according to bridal registry records.
Letourneau, 43, and Vili Fualaau, 22, who have two daughters, were reunited after the former teacher was released from prison last August. A judge later lifted a no-contact order between the two.
A longtime friend of the family was quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as saying the wedding would be held in April with more than 200 guests.
Letourneau and Fualaau have publicly expressed their love for each other in numerous interviews despite her guilty plea to two counts of second-degree child rape.
The two have set up an online bridal registry at a local department store for wedding gifts.
Police in Des Moines, Washington, 13 miles south of Seattle, found Fualaau, then 12, parked in a van with Letourneau, then 34, late one night in 1996 but chose not to file a report after phoning Fualaau's mother, who asked them to let Letourneau take him home.
Letourneau's husband later divorced her and moved to Alaska with their four children.
Letourneau was sentenced to prison in late 1997, pregnant with Fualaau's child. She was paroled in January 1998 but was barred from contact with him.
She was arrested less than a month later when she and Fualaau were caught in her car at 3 a.m. after a night at the movies. Letourneau was sent back to serve the rest of her term in prison, where she bore his second child, confirming they had resumed their sexual relationship.
Their two daughters, aged 6 and 7, are living with Fualaau's mother.
Their affair sparked a torrent of media coverage, including books and a television film.
