Mother Hopes Teacher Takes Plea

OCALA -- The mother of the teenage boy who reportedly had sexual relations with Debra Lafave is praying that Circuit Judge Hale Stancil lets the former teacher plead out, even if it means she will serve no time behind bars.

"There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself," the boy's mother wrote in an e-mail to the Ocala Star-Banner. "No one . . . felt more betrayed and disgusted by what she did than me.

"Especially a teacher and a person of authority, she was supposed to protect my son, not prey upon him," the boy's mother wrote.

Lafave is charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child under 16 and lewd and lascivious exhibition for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old Greco Middle School student on June 15 and June 17, 2004.

The alleged incidents occurred in the back of Lafave's SUV on State Road 200 as the boy's cousin drove and at Brick City Park.

In November, Lafave pleaded guilty in Hillsborough County to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery involving the same boy. She was sentenced to three years' community control and seven years of probation as part of a plea deal.

In December, Stancil rejected that same plea deal, which also requires Lafave to follow all sexual offender requirements.

A March 8 hearing at the Marion County courthouse gave Stancil a chance to hear testimony from Assistant State Attorney Michael Sinacore, who handled the case in Tampa, and Dr. Martin Lazoritz, a psychiatrist and associate chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Florida, who evaluated the victim, who is now 16 years old.

Their recommendation was to allow Lafave to take the deal and avoid having the 10th-grader testify. Continued media coverage of the case also pushed the family over the edge.

"There is nothing more important than protecting my son," the mother said.

"He's doing good right now . . . He has a right to have his privacy," she said Saturday in a phone interview with the Star-Banner.

It was protecting his anonymity that his mother was really concerned about. A London tabloid published her son's school photo and name on the Internet last year.

And Court TV officials, who said they were planning to film the trial, refused to have a time delay to delete any mention of her son's name at trial and refused to promise not to film the victim's family.

"That (Court TV) was the straw that broke the camel's back," she said. "We were ready for trial. . . . We had a very strong case."

The same day of the March 8 hearing, Stancil ordered transcripts of the hearing to review. He is expected to rule any time now.

The boy's mother thinks the judge has an opportunity to make a difference.

"You have to understand that this is a woman who can't live with boundaries," the boy's mom said. "I would be stunned if she doesn't violate her probation.

"I would pray that Judge Stancil would take the plea deal and then he would have the opportunity to immediately throw her in jail and give her 16 years," she said.

If the judge doesn't take the deal, the State Attorney's Office would have to decide whether to drop the charges or go to trial, Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway has said.

The mother seems confident that the charges most likely would be dropped. But she doesn't want that to happen.

"She needs to have to answer to Judge Stancil for every move she makes," she said.