Wednesday, March 22, 2006
By Catherine Donaldson-Evans
OCALA, Fla. — Charges against a Tampa teacher who had sex with a 14-year-old middle-school student have been dropped in one of the two counties where the incidents occurred.
Debra Lafave, 25, was charged in Marion County with lewd and lascivious battery on a child and lewd and lascivious exhibition for having sex with the now 16-year-old boy in a sport utility vehicle.
As part of a plea deal, she is already serving seven years probation and three years house arrest for similar offenses in Hillsborough County for having sex with him in a classroom and her house.
But the state attorney's office in Marion County dropped the charges there on Tuesday after a judge rejected a similar plea deal that would have allowed Lafave to again avoid going to trial — and to prison. Because the boy's family doesn't want him to testify, the prosecution didn't have enough evidence to present its case.
"I believe my mental illness had a lot to do with my actions," Lafave said in a news conference Tuesday with defense attorney John Fitzgibbons, referring to bipolar disorder. "I offer my deepest apology. I am very remorseful. I want the world to see that bipolar is real."
I was watching Good Morning America when this story came on. I missed some of it but part of it I picked up is a Professor from Kansas has researched the difference in how females and males that assault minors are handled. Males I think are given an average of 15 years in prision while females are given an average of 3. Or in this case none. That seems very unfair to me. Seems the the crime is the same and they should get the same punishment.
Here's another person claiming mental illness............should she have got to use it?