Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Teacher Debra Lafave Arrested
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TAMPA, Fla. -- Debra Lafave -- the teacher who made national
headlines for her affair with a 14-year-old student -- has been
arrested for allegedly violating the terms of her probation.A former
Hillsborough County middle school teacher, Lafave pleaded guilty
in 2005 to having sex with the student in a classroom and at her
home in June 2004.Under the terms of her plea deal, she was
sentenced to three years house arrest and seven on probation.
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If she made it through two years without a violation, she could
come back to the judge and ask to have the final year of house
arrest commuted to probation.According to the arrest report,
Lafave broke the terms of her deal by having contact with a minor.
The 17-year-old girl was a co-worker of Lafave's at Danny Boy's
Restaurant in Ruskin.Investigators say Lafave and the girl talked
about non-work related issues such as family problems, friends,
high school, personal life, boyfriend issues, and sexual issues in
private one-on-one conversations.Lafave was supposed to get
court permission before having any contact with minors.
"It's the typical workplace conversation that people have - that
workers have - women have with their women colleagues, men
have with their men colleagues. They talk about family. They talk
about friends. They talk about high school. They talk about their
boyfriends. They talk about everything, and I don't know if you
have to put a muzzle on somebody or what you do, but it's talk.
That's all it is: talk," said her lawyer, John Fitzgibbons.
In an interview last year with NBC's Matt Lauer, Lafave blamed
her behavior with the 14-year-old student on mental illness."I think
he just became very flirtatious and you gotta remember, in that
period of my life, I didn't feel like an adult," she said.Lafave says
her mental troubles began with the trauma of being raped at age
13, and that later developed into bipolar disorder, a depressive
illness featuring sadness, anxiety and recurring thoughts of suicide.
From MyFoxTampaBay Reports
http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5121633&version=6&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.1.1
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1 comment:
While I'm normally rather unrelenting when it comes to child exploitation of any kind, this new case is ridiculous.
Those on parole are normally expected to report employment changes to the parole officer, especially while under house arrest. Since officials in this case were aware of Debra's employment, part of the blame belongs to them. Maybe all of it.
Just about everyone knows that restaurants regularly recruit teenagers to staff their establishments. How does one work side by side with a minor without establishing contact?
Restauraunt employees are expected to communicate and work as a team. Waitresses, hostesses, kitchen employees and management are always communicating with each other in order to expedite hot food and cleanliness expectations of the customer.
This case is a sham, as it would appear at this point that parole officials are either dumber than a rock, unrealistic in their expectations, or simply fell asleep at the wheel.
The Parole Officer could have rejected this employment arrangement altogether, knowing that contact with minors was an unrealistic expectation of this kind of employment. Instead, thousands upon thousands of tax dollars will be spent prosecuting a case where the arrangements were dubious from the start.
Danny Vice
The Weekly Vice
http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com
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