Mary Kay Letourneau (born January 30, 1962), née Mary Katherine Schmitz, is a former American teacher. She is known for having a sexual relationship with an underage pupil, Vili Fualaau. She has been convicted of statutory rape.

Mary Kay Schmitz married Steve Letourneau on June 30, 1984. The couple had two daughters and two sons together.

Mary Kay's father was John G. Schmitz, a Congressman from Orange County, California. He was generally considered one of the more conservative members of the House, and ran for the Presidency in 1972 on the American Independent Party ticket.

Letourneau first met Vili Fualaau (born June 24, 1983) when he was a student in her second-grade class at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Washington. He was seven years old; she was 27. She was his teacher again in the sixth grade, and the relationship became sexual during the summer of 1996, he was 13. Her husband discovered her relationship with Fualaau when he read her love letters to him in February, 1997, and revealed it to family members: a cousin reported the relationship to child protective services and Mary Kay was arrested for statutory rape on February 26, 1997. Four months later she gave birth to a daughter fathered by her student. On August 7, 1997 she pled guilty to two counts of second-degree statutory rape. She was sentenced to spend 80 more days in jail, and enrolled in a sexual deviancy treatment program. She was released from jail early (January 6, 1998), for good behavior, and was forbidden from seeing Fualaau.

On February 3, 1998 police discovered Letourneau having sexual intercourse in a car with Fualaau and arrested her for violating the conditions of her suspended sentence. She had also failed to complete her sexual deviancy treatment program. The original sentence of 89 months was reimposed.

In March, 1998, it was revealed that Letourneau was again pregnant with Fualaau's child: their second daughter was born in October 1998.

Steve Letourneau filed for divorce in May 1999 and has custody of his four children. He moved to Alaska and lives under a different last name.

The sentence imposed on Mary Kay Letourneau was the subject of much debate: because the abused child was male some consider the offense lesser than if he were female: the law does not. Mary Kay's subsequent comments make clear that she believes she has done nothing wrong.

In 2000 Fualaau's family sued the town he attended school in for emotional suffering, lost wages, and the costs of rearing his two children, claiming the school had failed to protect him for Letourneau's sexual advances. The jury found against them and no damages were awarded.

Mary Kay and Vili Fualaau wrote a book together, Un seul crime, l'amour which was published in France.

Mary Kay Letourneau was released on parole on August 4, 2004. On 6 August, 2004 Fualaau, who was by then 21, applied to the court to raise the no-contact order; the request was granted.

On Valentine's Day, 2005, Mary Kay and Vili Fualaau announced that they would be married on April 16th, 2005.

Media

The scandal has launched something of a Letourneau-Fualaau cottage industry, and resulted in number of TV programs and books, including:

• Un seul crime, l'amour (Only one crime, Love) by Mary Kay and Vili Fualaau
• If Loving You Is Wrong, by Gregg Olsen
• The Mary Kay Letourneau Affair by James Robinson
• The Mary Kay Letourneau Story: All American Girl, a 2000 TV movie
• 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

A new book Mass With Mary: The Prison Years by Christina Dress , with Mary Kay Letourneau was released in July 2004. It was written by three of Letourneau's fellow inmates.

See also

• Debra Lafave

External links

• http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/marykay_letourneau/