Lafave Case Over

By THOMAS W. KRAUSE tkrause@tampatrib.com

Published: Mar 22, 2006

TAMPA - No more court hearings, no more news conferences and no more threats of a prison sentence for Debra Lafave.

Unless, of course, she violates her house arrest.

Criminal charges accusing the former middle school teacher of driving to Ocala and having sex with a 14-year-old student were dropped Tuesday by Marion County prosecutors.

An earlier deal, placing Lafave on house arrest for similar Hillsborough County charges, remains her only punishment.

"It's over," her attorney, John Fitzgibbons, said Tuesday afternoon. "And this time, this case is really over and over for good."

Tuesday morning, the case seemed much less "over."

Marion County Judge Hale Stancil rejected a plea deal in which Lafave would plead guilty to the Marion County charges in exchange for serving three years of house arrest followed by seven years of probation. The sentence would have been equal to the one she is serving after pleading guilty in Hillsborough County. Stancil said he would not put his name on any deal unless it included prison time.

"Quite frankly," Stancil wrote in a six-page order, "if the allegations against the defendant are true, the agreed upon sentence shocks the conscience of this court."

In response to Stancil's firm stance, Marion County State Attorney Brad King dropped the charges against 25-year-old Lafave. A written statement from King's office chided Stancil for not approving the deal.

The teen's family asked for the deal to ensure a trial would "be avoided at any cost," King's statement said. A psychiatrist testified before Stancil this month, saying a trial could damage the teen's recovery efforts.

"The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial," the statement said. "I am not."

The Marion County charges included two counts of lewd and lascivious battery and one count of lewd and lascivious exhibition. Prosecutors alleged Lafave drove the teen to Ocala, where his cousin took the wheel of her sport utility vehicle while she and teen had sex in the back. On a second trip, the two had sex in the SUV while the cousin stood outside.

Had Lafave been convicted, the law provides a recommended minimum sentence of nearly 17 years in prison.

In November, Lafave pleaded guilty to similar charges that accused her of performing a sex act on the boy in her Riverview town home, then having intercourse with him in her portable classroom at Greco Middle School.

In addition to the house arrest and probation, Lafave's Hillsborough deal mandates that she register as a sex offender, forfeit her teaching certificate and wear an electronic monitoring device when the court deems necessary.

In Her Own Words

After the Marion County charges were dropped, Lafave and her attorney spoke from Fitzgibbons' office above the Tampa Theatre.

"We only hope, in the next few weeks, Debbie will fade to a footnote," Fitzgibbons said.

Lafave said she is taking online classes in journalism and hopes to write a book about her illness, bipolar disorder.

"I want the world to know that bipolar is real," she said.

As part of her plea deal, however, Lafave cannot profit from her story or her infamy - including book and movie deals.

Fitzgibbons said writing about the illness, not her story, would be allowed.

Lafave says her mental illness prompted her to do things she would not normally. Fitzgibbons had planned to use an insanity defense at trial. Intense therapy since her arrest has helped greatly, she said.

While expressing regret for what she did to the teenager, Lafave also had harsh words for the media, especially those who reportedly knocked on the teen's door and asked neighbors about the case.

Lafave said the ordeal has changed her.

"My passion was teaching, and that's been taken away from me," she said. "I've lost family and I've lost friends."

Lafave's husband divorced her shortly after her arrest.

Since then, however, Lafave has reunited with a former high school sweetheart. She and Andrew Beck are engaged.

In November, Beck's former girlfriend applied for a restraining order to keep Lafave away from her children. The order was rejected because there was no evidence Lafave had harmed the children.

On Tuesday, Lafave said she has no contact with the children.

"I don't see children period," she said. "That's in my plea agreement."

A Judge's Order

As Tuesday's events unfolded, the judge and state attorney traded jabs - the judge in his written order, the prosecutor in his written statement.

Stancil seemed to have no problem forcing the boy to testify.

A psychiatrist who interviewed the teen for 90 minutes said he is a quiet boy who is not a good candidate for verbal therapy. Instead, the doctor testified, the boy needed to live in anonymity.

Stancil rejected this analysis as "less than convincing."

"This court cannot comprehend any individual - whether he is 15, 45 or 75 years old - looking forward to discussing such an experience in public," he wrote. "Sex may sell books, movies and magazines, but no one looks forward to discussing private sexual encounters in public."

Stancil was adamant that the punishment offered by the plea deal was insufficient.

"Accepting the proposed plea agreement would undermine the credibility of this court, and the criminal justice system as a whole, and would erode public confidence in our schools," Stancil wrote.

Stancil wrote that he might have decided to accept the deal if any number of actions were taken by state authorities.

For example, he wrote, prosecutors could have presented more experts to explain why the teen should not testify; they could have made better use of court-appointed victims' advocates who are trained to prepare reluctant witnesses for trial; or they could have asked the judge to meet privately with the teen.

The statement from King's office said Stancil had told them to have the teenager evaluated by a psychiatrist. If the psychiatrist determined the teen should not testify, he might accept the deal.

Then, King's statement said, Stancil rejected the psychiatrist's evaluation.

"It is not clear on what this conclusion is based," the statement said. "The lawyers and doctors who have met these individual victims have a very different opinion than the court."

Swarming Media

Prosecutors have said the teen and his cousin were worried about media coverage at trial.

Cable news station Court TV planned to air a trial live. Although the victims would not be identified, the channel would not agree to a delay in the broadcast to prevent the teen's name from being aired inadvertently.

Karen A. Duncan, a sex-assault therapist in Indianapolis who has studied women as sex offenders, said she can appreciate Stancil's attitude. Still, she said, without making considerations for the teen, testifying at trial can be revictimizing, she said.

Although society might not see it, men can suffer after a sex assault at the hands of women, Duncan said.

Often, a young man's friends might congratulate him for having sex with an older woman, Duncan said. Others might think, if the woman is attractive, he must have wanted and enjoyed the sex, she said. Duncan said no one would suggest a female victim enjoyed a sex assault because her attacker was attractive.

"Studies show us that boys who are sexually abused by women do not have the feelings that societal stereotypes place on them," she said. "They do have shame. They do have embarrassment."

Duncan said it is telling that the psychiatrist said the teen was a quiet boy. Often, child molesters seek out quiet children who are less likely to tell and less likely to testify at trial, Duncan said.

With a flood of media coverage, testimony by a victim becomes even more difficult.

Stancil's order included stern words for the media's role. He wrote that he did not want to send the message that if enough media attention is placed on a case, and the victim is afraid of that attention, a defendant can avoid "an appropriate sentence."

Charles Rose, a professor at Stetson University College of Law, said Fitzgibbons worked to keep the Lafave case active in the media early on. He recalled a news conference when Fitzgibbons said putting Lafave in prison would be like giving raw meat to lions - suggesting she was too pretty for prison.

Fitzgibbons declined to discuss his legal strategy in this case but pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that says lawyers have the duty to represent their clients in the court of public opinion as well as in the court of law.

Rose said court rules prevent lawyers from making comments to poison a jury pool. Instead, Rose said, Fitzgibbons was possibly using the media to make Lafave look like a victim - not an easy task.

"Whenever you can take the black hat off a defendant and turn them into someone who needs to be taken care of, you've come a long way," Rose said.

Still, Rose said he doubted Fitzgibbons made a conscious decision to manipulate the media to try to wrangle a plea deal from prosecutors.

"My guess is that it was not a long-term strategic plan," he said. "My guess is he pushed, and it worked, so he pushed some more."

WHAT'S NEXT

No court hearings are planned in the Debra Lafave case. She will return to court when she completes her house arrest or if she violates the conditions of house arrest.

Lafave said she is taking online classes in journalism and is engaged to be married to a high school sweetheart.