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Mary Kay Letourneau

Mary Kay Letourneau:Mary Kay Letourneau on her release from jail, January 6, 1998.
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Mary Kay Letourneau on her release from jail, January 6, 1998.

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 served seven years in prison.


Contents

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 anti-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.

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 a sexual relationship with him during the summer of 1996, when he was 13. Her husband discovered her relationship with Fualaau when he read their love letters to each other in February 1997, and revealed it to family members. His cousin reported the relationship to local child protection services.

On February 26 1997, Mary Kay was arrested for statutory rape, called "child rape" in Washington. Four months later, she gave birth to daughter Audrey Lokelani, who was fathered by her former 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 from seeing 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, 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.

Public reaction

In the United States this story generated predominantly negative publicity, with some notable exceptions, e.g. Robert Reich's comment "where were teachers like she [Mary Letourneau] when I went to school?"[citation needed]. Reich was at that time the Secretary of Labor in President Clinton's administration.

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.

References

Filmography

Sound tracks

Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule wrote a song about Letourneau, "Mary Kay", appearing on her album Pink Pearl.

See also

Categories


Articles with unsourced statements | 1962 births | Living people | American schoolteachers | Arizona State University alumni | Convicted child sex offenders | People from Seattle | Statutory rapists

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