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Word for Word
Will the bride wear orange?
By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published March 3, 2005
Debra Lafave of Tampa isn't the first female teacher to make national headlines for having sex with an underage student. In 1996, Seattle teacher Mary Kay Letourneau's affair with her sixth-grade pupil Vili Fualaau, then 12, was the scandal du jour.
Nine years later, the two have set an April 16 wedding date and registered for gifts at WeddingChannel.com.
Letourneau was a 34-year-old married mother of four when she started having sex with Fualaau and soon became pregnant. The affair resulted in Letourneau's conviction for second-degree rape of a child and two prison sentences. The second occurred after she violated the terms of her probation by seeing Fualaau (and became pregnant a second time).
The couple's two daughters, now 6 and 7, have been in the custody of Fualaau's mother; Letourneau's husband divorced her in 1999 and moved to Alaska with their children.
Letourneau was released from prison in August, and two days later, a judge lifted the no-contact order that prevented her from seeing Fualaau. The two, who are unemployed, became engaged last fall.
Although Letourneau, 43, and Fualaau, 22, tried to keep their plans for a wedding with 200 guests quiet, news of their gift registry leaked on Valentine's Day, with the link springing up all over the Internet. The WeddingChannel.com registry includes wish lists at Bon-Macy's, Crate & Barrel and Tiffany & Co.
For a few days in late February, if you went to the main site for WeddingChannel.com and searched the registries with Letourneau's name, you didn't get to the gift list.
You were linked instead to a "charity registry," with this note: "WeddingChannel.com will make a donation to the bride and groom's charity each time a gift listed on their registry is purchased through WeddingChannel.com."
The listed charities: Children's Defense Fund, Save the Children, Child Welfare League of America and National Center for Victims of Crime.
The charity list was removed a couple of days later. WeddingChannel.com did not return several calls seeking comment.
As of Monday afternoon, most of the items on the Bon-Macy's list had been purchased for the couple. Some of their selections follow.
- COLETTE BANCROFT, Times staff writer
BON-MACY'S
VILLEROY & BOCH TWIST ALEA CARO DINNER PLATE
Requested: 10
Still need: 0
Price: $18
KITCHENAID ARTISAN MIXER, CHROME
Requested: 1
Still need: 0
Price: $299.99
WATERFORD "FIGARO" VELVET PILLOW, PLUM
Requested: 1
Still need: 1
Price: $75
CRATE & BARREL
ELEGANT HEART CAKE PAN
Requested: 2
Still need: 0
Price: $15.50
MONIKA DESSERT WINE GLASS
Requested: 10
Still need: 6
Price: $6.95
SHINY HAMMERED COCKTAIL SHAKER
Requested: 2
Still need: 2
Price: $19.95
TIFFANY & CO.
PLATINUM BAND DINNER PLATE
Requested: 10
Still need: 10
Price: $60
TIFFANY CHAMPAGNE FLUTE
Requested: 12
Still need: 12
Price: $25
STERLING SILVER FRAME
Requested: 1
Still need: 1
Price: $300
[Last modified March 2, 2005, 11:50:05]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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