‘I WAS WRONGLY SENT TO PRISON’
A FORMER TEACHER CONVICTED OF RAPING HER STUDENT CLAIMS SHE DID NOTHING WRONG
She was the primary school teacher who was convicted of raping her sixth-grade student. Now, more than two decades later, Mary Kay Letourneau believes she was wrongly imprisoned.
Letourneau made international headlines in 1997 when it was revealed she was in a sexual relationship with 12-year-old Vili Fualaau. She was 34 at the time, and was married with four children.
In an exclusive Sunday Night interview, which aired last night on Channel Seven, Letourneau has spoken out about her imprisonment. Asked if she thought she had been wrongly imprisoned, she replied: “Absolutely.”
Letourneau said, “You don’t know our story, but we do.”
Letourneau was arrested after a relative of her husband, Steve Letourneau, told police she was having an affair with her student, and later in 1997 she pleaded guilty and was convicted of second-degree child rape.
While she was out on bail awaiting sentencing, Letourneau gave birth to Vili’s child, Audrey. As part of her plea agreement, she was told she could have no more contact with Vili. But the following year she was caught by police having sex with Vili in a car and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In shocking claims, Letourneau believes she was “tricked and coerced” into taking a guilty plea.
“I did the best that I felt at the time,” she told Sunday Night. “(But) it’s just absurd to think that 13-year-olds are not having sex and they’re not pursuing it.”
To this day, the former teacher believes she was doing nothing wrong by having sex with Vili.
“I did not know, I have said this over and over again, that this would count as a crime,” she said.
While Letourneau may have thought what they were doing was fine at the time, Vili clearly has his doubts.
“I would say, you know, it was wrong,” he told Sunday Night. “I think morally we should have waited.”
Later, Vili was asked what advice he would give his 12-year-old self about whether he should enter a relationship with Letourneau. His response was simple: “Don’t do it.”
Despite the storm of controversy their relationship created, Letourneau, 56, and Vili, 35 are now happily married with two children. She had a second daughter with Vili, Georgia, while she was behind bars in 1998.
While their relationship shocked at the time – and continues to outrage the community – Letourneau claims
it was Vili who initially chased her. “I was pursued and I didn’t think about it,” she said.
Recalling what Letourneau said after she was arrested, her lawyer David Gehrke said she defended her actions, telling him “we were in love”.
“I didn’t make him do anything,” David said his client told him. “If anything, he was wanting it. He was pushing for it.”
The couple first met when Vili was just 8 years old and he admitted to being infatuated with Letourneau even at such a young age.
She said he had told her that he and his friends would hide in the closet at school, with the hope she would walk past so “we could look up her skirt”.
He decided to pursue the teacher as part of a bet.
“I remember she was very pretty,” Vili said. “I think [I was] showing off to a cousin of mine like, ‘I bet you that you can’t get what’s-her-name.’ And so I ended up taking the bet and pursued Mary.”
Even now, the couple’s relationship is not without its problems. Last year, Vili filed for legal separation, but then withdrew the request.
Vili last night admitted he’d considered calling time on their marriage “every now and then”.
“I’ve seen marriages where they make it work,” he said. “They might have fallen out of love somewhere in the relationship, but they somehow just make it work.”
Said Letourneau: “I love him more today. I hope everybody in marriage gets there.”