Molesting teacher to wed her former victim

SEATTLE – Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade pupil, Vili Fualaau, with whom she had two children, have decided to get married, according to Fualaau’s agent.

Letourneau, 43, served 7 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of raping Fualaau, now 22.

“It’s been long overdue,” Noel Soriano, a longtime friend of the family and Fualaau’s agent told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “It’s going to be fabulous, seeing them get hitched finally.”

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Soriano would not confirm the couple had set a date. The couple’s bridal registry at Bon-Macy’s lists the wedding date as April 16.

Letourneau was 34 and a married mother of four when she began a sexual relationship with the then-12-year-old Fualaau after meeting at Burien’s Shorewood Elementary School in 1996. She was pregnant with Fualaau’s first child when she was arrested in 1997 and ordered to serve a six-month sentence for second-degree child rape.

One month after she was released, Letourneau was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car. She pleaded guilty in 1997 to two charges of child rape, and gave birth to the couple’s second daughter while serving her 7 1/2 -year sentence. Fualaau’s mother is raising their two daughters, ages 6 and 7.

Shortly after Letourneau was released from prison last August, the pair successfully petitioned a King County judge to lift a no-contact order that had barred them from seeing each other.

Soriano said they became engaged when Fualaau proposed last fall, but they have been trying to keep wedding details a secret. But with a guest list that will include more than 200 people, the news was bound to come out eventually, he said.

The wedding will likely be held in a Seattle-area church, Soriano said. Details are yet to be completed, but plans call for their daughters to be flower girls and Fualaau’s nephew to be a ring bearer, he said.

Neither Letourneau nor Fualaau could be reached for comment.

Letourneau now lives with friends in the Boulevard Park neighborhood south of Seattle. Fualaau is unemployed but has been studying for his GED and working on his artwork. He’s also been meeting with gallery owners to discuss the possibility of exhibiting some of his work, Soriano said.

Though they aren’t living together, Fualaau cooks for Letourneau nightly, Soriano said.

The couple will likely live in the Seattle area after they wed, he said.

“They have gone through a lot,” Soriano told the P-I. “That they lasted this long proves how strong their love is.”

Soriano told the AP he’s in final negotiations on a book about the affair and hopes movie and television deals follow.