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The Lafave case: key players
By Times Staff Writer
Published March 22, 2006
DEBRA LAFAVE, 25, a former reading teacher at Greco Middle School. She was accused of having sex in 2004 with a 14-year-old student in Hillsborough County and in an SUV in Marion County. She pleaded guilty in Hillsborough in November in exchange for a plea deal with no prison time. She was married at the time, divorced, and is now engaged to be married.
MALE VICTIM, now 16, was a student at Greco, though not in Lafave's class. His mother asked for a plea deal, saying that the worldwide media attention was too much for her son, and that he shouldn't have to testify at trial. The boy is now in high school, likes to play basketball and has said he wants to go to the University of Florida.
JUDGE HALE R. STANCIL, 60, a judge in the 5th Judicial Circuit, which serves Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties. In December he rejected the plea deal agreed to by Hillsborough and Marion prosecutors and reaffirmed that decision Tuesday. He was a county judge in Marion for many years and took a seat on the circuit bench in 1994.
JOHN FITZGIBBONS, 55, the attorney for Lafave. He is a longtime defense attorney and a former federal prosecutor. He drew controversy with his comments last summer about Lafave and prison: "To place an attractive young woman in that kind of hellhole is like placing a piece of raw meat in with the lions. I don't think Debbie could survive it."
MICHAEL SINACORE, 41, the Hillsborough prosecutor who agreed to the plea deal. He has worked for the State Attorney's Office for almost nine years and for the public defender six years before that. He was chief of the state attorney's sex crimes unit for six years and now is felony bureau chief. He was the prosecutor who reviewed the case of Alan Crotzer, who was recently freed after 24 years in prison for a rape when DNA evidence exonerated him.
[Last modified March 22, 2006, 02:16:23]
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