Letourneau To Do Time Prosecutor Says Ex-Teacher Was Ready To Flee With Teen Who Fathered Her Child

A judge Friday sent Mary K. LeTourneau to prison for more than seven years after being told the former teacher had not only violated her probation, she was apparently preparing to flee the country - possibly with her 14-year-old rape victim and their baby.

In a packed courtroom in King County Superior Court, Judge Linda Lau imposed the penalty after police and other witnesses appeared before her at a parolerevocation hearing, painting a disturbing portrait of a contentious, out-of-control and even dangerous woman who appeared to be living out of her car.

The witnesses told Lau that early Tuesday morning, when police caught LeTourneau in her car with the boy, it contained a passport, $6,200 in cash, men’s and baby clothing, food, a beer bottle and recent photos of the boy and the baby.

The recent photos, witnesses said, suggest that LeTourneau and the boy might have seen each other before Tuesday’s arrest.

“These violations are extraordinarily egregious and profoundly disturbing,” Lau said in a terse statement to LeTourneau. “This case is not about a flawed system. It’s about an opportunity that you foolishly squandered.”

In addressing Lau this morning, Deputy Prosecutor Lisa Johnson took a hard line, as she had said she would do if LeTourneau violated conditions of the parole Lau granted in November when she ordered LeTourneau into a treatment program for sex offenders, rather than to prison.

Chief among those conditions was that LeTourneau complete the treatment program and avoid all contact with the now 14-year-old former student whose baby she bore in May. A tearful LeTourneau had promised the judge she would obey.

But on Tuesday, one month after her release from jail, LeTourneau got caught with the boy at 3 o’clock in the morning.

That’s an “egregious violation of the court’s order,” Johnson said. She also said LeTourneau has been kicked out of her sexual-treatment program by her counselor, Terry Copeland, who had said his meetings with LeTourneau have all been “contentious sessions in which she has repeatedly argued with his treatment program.”

At her earlier sentencing hearing, LeTourneau had “tried to persuade the court she was genuinely remorseful,” Johnson said. But “we’re here today to present evidence that, in the one short month that Ms. LeTourneau has been out of confinement, she demonstrates she is not safe to be at large in the community.”

“It appears as though Ms. LeTourneau was ready to leave the jurisdiction,” Johnson said.

Also appearing before Lau this morning was Seattle police Officer Todd Harris, who made Tuesday’s arrest. Harris testified that after LeTourneau got out of her car, she lied that she was alone, then gave him a false name. The boy also lied about his identity, Harris said.

Harris said he later took LeTourneau back to his patrol car, “where she finally told me who she was, and that the boy who was in the car with her was, in fact, the father of her baby.”

Seattle police Detective Dane Bean, who interviewed the boy, also testified.

“He was somewhat hesitant to talk. He told me that he didn’t know at this point who he could trust. He felt the things he said would be used against Mary.”

Bean said the boy denied that he and LeTourneau had sex that night.

“He told me that there had not been sexual contact. … They had held hands. He held her … they kissed frequently in the car.” Bean said the boy also told him, though, that “he had been rubbing her right thigh - the top of her thigh.”

In interviews, both LeTourneau and the boy have said they are in love. The boy has objected to being called a victim.

The boy was not in the courtroom, but his mother was. David Leen, an attorney for the boy’s family, said the mother has had it with LeTourneau.

Leen said the boy is overwhelmed by what has happened and has had difficulty coping. “He’s a talented young man,” Leen said. But “his peers at school know, and it’s embarrassing for him.”

LeTourneau’s husband, Steve LeTourneau, has moved to Alaska with the couple’s four children and filed for divorce. He said there had been plans for her to meet with the children - until Friday.

“I’m very saddened for my children,” LeTourneau said in an interview with “American Journal.”

“I’m numb from everything. I can’t believe that it’s come to this, especially when she was given an opportunity,” he said.

“I don’t know what she was thinking about. Nobody will every know.”