KENT, Wash. — She was a popular teacher, known for working past midnight on school projects and being a compassionate ally to her students. He was one of the special ones: a sixth-grader with whom she had recognized a kindred spirit when he entered her class, talented and intense.
The relationship that developed between the 13-year-old boy and his teacher, a 35-year-old mother of four who gave birth to the boy's baby in June, unfolded in a Washington courtroom Friday, where Superior Court Judge Linda Lau sentenced Mary Kay LeTourneau to six months in jail and at least three years of treatment for sex offenders.
LeTourneau, who grew up in Orange County and is the daughter of former Republican Rep. John Schmitz, pleaded guilty in August to two counts of second-degree child rape, but it was on Friday that prosecutors, psychological evaluators and defense lawyers provided the most detailed account of the yearlong affair--a liaison that cost LeTourneau her job, her husband, her children and, finally, her freedom.
Prosecutors had demanded a long prison term for the schoolteacher, pointing out that LeTourneau still holds strong feelings of romantic attachment to the boy, who also claims to love her.
But a tearful LeTourneau, standing thin and wan before the judge in a black pleated skirt, said she had realized her mistake. "I did something I had no right to do, morally or legally," she said, her soft voice breaking. "Help me."
The case has opened a national debate on female sex offenders and the curious diversity in reaction to what the attractive blond schoolteacher did: Was she, as prosecutors allege, a predator without conscience? Or, as dozens of male respondents to newspapers and talk radio programs suggest, the answer to every schoolboy's dream?
About one-fifth of all boys who are victims of sexual abuse are molested by women. Yet, much of the debate over LeTourneau has centered on whether her crime was as serious as that of an older man preying on a young girl. To suggest otherwise, say opponents of such an idea, is to impose a dangerous double standard.
"She abused the trust placed in her as a schoolteacher, as a mother, as a wife and as an adult," argued Lisa Johnson, senior deputy prosecutor. "She exploited him for her own needs, her own selfishness and her own inadequacies. . . . She is an adult who sexually abused a sixth-grade boy."
