The Predator Teacher Called ‘Too Pretty for Prison’ - Debra Lafave

It was a name ripped straight from the headlines, Deborah LaFave. What's the reaction you get in the street from people who recognize you? Snickers, stairs, mothers would hold their children tightly when they saw me. And that would say bad things to you? Um, that's Deborah LaFave. The young, striking, beautiful, blonde, haired, blue-eyed teacher and newly wed, arrested for assaulting a middle school student. The world could not look away. Here you have this woman who seemingly had it all. Not only was she like a total knockout, she was at the start of her career. She was in the first year of her marriage. No one could understand why she would risk her reputation, risk her career, her marriage, and her freedom for four weeks with a 14-year-old boy. Thank you so much for joining me for this week's investigation. If you've been here before, welcome back. If this is your first time joining me for an investigation, here at Hot The Case, we talk all things true crime. 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My name is Brianna and I'm hot on the case. Deborah LaFave was born Deborah Jean Beasley on August 28, 1980. She was raised in the tiny town of Ruskin, a suburb about 20 miles outside of Tampa, Florida. Her parents raised Deborah and Deborah's older sister Angie in a seemingly normal loving but sometimes strict household. Deborah and her older sister Angie were extremely close. They were more like best friends than they were sisters. But from a very young age, Deborah suffered with anxiety, depression and was just in a lot of pain. She didn't tell anyone at the time, but when Deborah was 13 years old and only in the eighth grade, she was raped by an older boyfriend in the school bathroom of her junior high. And Deborah certainly carried this trauma with her for a very long time. Deborah said that it was actually this assault that she experienced in the eighth grade that pushed her to want to become a teacher when she got older. I always wanted to be a teacher. Like I said, I used to play school with my dolls and after I got raped, I wanted to be able to educate kids on issues like rape and all the things that I never learned about. And Deborah herself says that she does see the twisted irony in the fact that this assault that she experienced in school when she was in the eighth grade pushed her into wanting to become a teacher and also aid children through difficult topics like consent and sexual assault. Since Deborah would later go on to statutory rape and eighth grader inside of that student's middle school, the same exact thing that happened to her 10 years earlier. You have to know it sounds ironic when you say I wanted to educate children on issues like rape. Oh yeah. I don't think it's turned out. Oh yeah. And following her assault, Deborah did not tell anyone and she really just suffered in silence throughout the rest of her teen years. By 15 years old, she was developing a really serious drinking problem. She was developing an eating disorder and even tragically attempted to take her own life twice. She would use the male attention that she got her body and sex as a surrogate for real love and real affection. Deborah was a very troubled girl and there were a lot of warning signs. But no one ever saw any of those red flags. Instead, when people looked at Deborah, they did not see her pain, her loneliness, her insecurity. When people looked at Deborah, they saw her beauty. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pretty face, everywhere Deborah went. She turned heads her entire life. Throughout school, she had a handful of boyfriends, including Nick Carter, a member of the hit boy band, The Backstreet Boys. The two reportedly met and started dating when Deborah was 15 and Nick was just starting to go on tour with The Backstreet Boys and the two dated for like a year and a half, two years. And then when Nick went back on tour, he heard that Debbie was cheating on him with a classmate. Deborah was Nick Carter's first ever girlfriend and actually who he lost his virginity too. And this relationship only came out in 2006 when Nick and his younger brother did an interview on The Howard Stern Show. And I'm going to play some of that clip where he discusses his time with Deborah LaFave for you now because I think it's really interesting to hear how this case and this topic of female predators was being openly discussed back then in 2006. How long was he when he lost his virginity? I think he was 16 with Debbie. 15, you want to bring it up? Oh, I know what you mean. Was it 15 with Debbie? Is Debbie the girl who was a schoolteacher? Yes. Do you know the story? That was my first girlfriend. My first girlfriend he ever had. He went to school with Debbie. What was your name when you got the newspaper? LaFave. What? Debbie LaFave was a teacher and she was accused of having to one of her students and she was that really hot blonde. And that was the girl you lost your virginity too? Yes. Something else, man. Wow. I know. That never came out. No, I know. My public is as light-stay as far away from that as you can. No kidding. Was she a freak back then? That's the one who was just in the news. She was with Matt Laura a week ago. Right. Yeah, she was. I just started talking to him with the bags of boys and I just started dating her and basically I left on tour and I got some phone calls from some friends of mine basically saying that she had cheated on me. When you open up the newspaper and you see that the first chick you ever banged is now a school teacher and she's banging the student. It goes through your mind. Honestly. Oh God, I'm half a teacher. No, I'm just saying. No, you know, it's funny. There's a certain point when you say yourself, okay, you can't really cross that line. After dating, Nick Carter, Deborah went on to have a relationship with a female classmate and this relationship infuriated Deborah's parents. So much so that they actually took her out of her high school, East Bay high school and transferred her to Bloomingdale high school where she did end up graduating with pretty good grades. Freshly 18 years old, Deborah got scouted for quite a few modeling opportunities, but it was always her dreams and she was little to be a teacher. So instead of going into a career in modeling, Deborah enrolled at the University of South Florida to study English. Deborah did well in school. She had lots of friends. She started a serious relationship with Owen LaFave, but that sadness I Deborah had throughout her teen years was definitely still with her. It did not go away and she would find herself just crying all of the time while she was in university. So this is one Deborah for the first time ever actually went and spoke with a psychiatrist and she was diagnosed with depression and was prescribed the anti-depressant SSRI Zolof. Something else very significant happened in Deborah's life while she was in college. In 2001, her older sister and best friend Angie was killed in a car accident with a drunk driver. She was five months pregnant and the drunk driver that killed the pregnant Angela Beasley was sentenced to 30 years in prison. And as you can imagine, this was devastating for Deborah. I mean, this wasn't just her sister, this was her best friend, her mentor. Deborah looked up to her older sister her entire life, so this was a life-changing loss. However, Deborah tried to keep it together and she did graduate from college the following year. And that same year in 2002, she took a position teaching English at Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, a suburb of Tampa. Her first year teaching went without hiccups and the following year, Deborah married her college boyfriend, Owen LaFave, in July 2003. So despite everything she has gone through in her life, this was a really good, exciting time in Deborah's life. She's in the first year of her marriage. She's in the start of her career. She's about to start her second every year teaching. Her first year teaching went really, really well. Her colleagues really liked her, the parents really liked her, and the students absolutely adored her. She's this new, beautiful, young teacher because she's younger than some of the other teachers. The students felt like they could really relate to her more. So yeah, things were going really, really well. But it was that second year teaching middle school that changed everything, that 2003, 2004 school year. Deborah's husband, Owen, realized that his new bride was going to work in more and more revealing outfits, low cut tops, no bra, short skirts that got shorter and shorter as the school year went on. And then Deborah was always coming home late. She was coming home hours after the school day had already ended. So even though they had only been married for less than a year, Owen became suspicious that his wife was having an affair with someone at school. He thought that maybe she was sleeping with one of the fellow teachers at the middle school. Now Mrs. LaFave was having an appropriate relationship with someone that she met at the middle school, but I bet her husband never expected that person to be a 14 year old boy, one of the eighth grade students. Deborah first came into contact with this student around April of that school year. When she agreed to help the football coach with a tag football game and this eighth grader was one of the players on the field. Now this 14 year old boy's identity has not been released. The public, his identity is protected. So throughout this video, I'm going to refer to him as the pseudonym Justin. Now Justin was very freshly 14 years old, he had just turned 14. It's actually been reported that when Justin and Deborah first met, that he wasn't even 14 years old yet, he was still 13 years old about to turn 14. So we're talking like a really young boy. He's in middle school eighth grade, he's not even in high school yet. Justin has been described as one of the popular boys in middle school. He was the athletic type. Justin was actually not one of Deborah, Mrs. LaFave's students, but Justin and all of his friends definitely knew of Mrs. LaFave, all of the middle school boys knew about Deborah because she was the new young hot teacher. And I mean, this is very, very, very normal for young boys to be attracted or to have crushes on their teachers. I mean, even girls do this in school. I mean, in my middle school and junior high, every single girl knew of this one young attractive substitute teacher that we had in our rotation, like this is very normal. But what is not normal is for that adult in this situation to feed into this behavior and even worse for them to reciprocate it. So during this middle school tag football game that Deborah was assisting the football coach with, Justin and his bodies went out of their way to go talk to the pretty teacher. And instead of setting boundaries with the students, Deborah liked the attention she's kind of flirting with them. And after this tag football game, it was Deborah going out of her way to find ways to speak and spend time with Justin. She's a 23 year old married teacher. And she finds this eighth grade boy in middle school attractive. The following month in May of 2004, there was a school field trip to SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida. And Mrs. La Fave, Deborah was a shopper on this field trip. And it was during this field trip that she spent a majority of her time speaking with and getting to know Justin. This is textbook grooming. And after that field trip, it was getting really close to the end of the school year. Meaning Deborah wouldn't have access to Justin anymore. So Deborah is finding any excuse to spend more and more time with Justin. She's even giving him detention so she can spend a long time with him in her classroom after school. She's also hanging out in her classroom with Justin and all of Justin's buddies. She has them one day after school helping her clean out her classroom. She I guess sees herself as one of their peers, not an authority figure, nearly twice their age. And at this time, it's clear that the lines are blurring between what is appropriate and what is definitely not appropriate. But Deborah's about to fully cross that line. It was actually when Justin and his group of underage friends were in Deborah's classroom that Justin asks the teacher Mrs. La Fave to flash them. And Deborah kind of does. She lifts up her shirt to show this group of underage students the bottom of her bra in her classroom. And it was actually that exact same day after Justin's friends left the classroom that Deborah kissed Justin for the first time. There was another time in her classroom that Deborah had Justin remove his pants so she could perform an act on him. So she has officially crossed the line into assaulting this child, a student at the middle school that she worked for. On the last day of the school year, one of the middle school students threw a little party to celebrate the start of the summer vacation and Justin was invited to this party. And guess who else showed up? The middle school English teacher Mrs. La Fave. Yeah, she actually went to a middle school party. And throughout this party, Deborah is seen surrounded by all these young boys. It was Justin and his friends and people also saw her get really close to and flirty with Justin. And at one point during this party, a student goes up to Justin and asks him why is our teacher at this middle school party? And Justin says the student that she's his girlfriend. It was also that same night that Deborah and Justin exchanged phone numbers. It was her idea because she wants a way to stay in contact with him during the summer break. It's summer now. So Deborah is not working because she's a teacher, they have summers off, but her husband Owen is working. Deborah is free throughout a majority of the week when her husband will not be home. And Deborah that summer is constantly texting and calling Justin. She's telling this child how unhappy. She is in her marriage. She's telling this child how much she likes him, how she has these deep feelings for him, how she's thinking about him all the time, how these feelings won't go away. And her victim Justin actually later said that Deborah told him that it was a turn on for her, that their relationship was forbidden. Obviously, Deborah has adamantly denied ever saying this, but it is important to note that she hasn't denied anything else Justin has claimed about their time together. Didn't you say that one of the things that turns me on is knowing that I'm not supposed to be having something? You know what? There's a few comments that I have heard. And this is the first time that I'm speaking out that are not true period. Okay, so you never said to him, it's a turn on to me because I know we are not supposed to be having. Absolutely, no way, I never, ever, ever said that. Justin was really close to a male cousin. He had, they were both really close in age. This cousin who I'm just going to call cousin or Justin's cousin throughout this video to protect his identity was 15 years old at the time. The two boys are extremely close and they talk on the phone all the time because they live about 100 miles away from each other. And that summer, Justin is calling his cousin and telling his cousin about this smoking hot teacher that likes him. Cousin does not believe Justin at all and he tells him if you want me to believe this, then you're going to need to prove it. It was, I believe, two weeks after the school year ended that Deborah brought Justin to her classroom, even though they had no business being there because the school year was over. And it was in her classroom that Deborah, 23 years old, married, and a teacher, statutory raped the 14 year old Justin. And this was. unfortunately Justin's first ever experience doing this sort of act. And it was after that first assault that Deborah actually drove Justin the 100 mile road trip so he could go visit his cousin. What better proof than bringing Deborah to him to meet her in person. And it was on that trip that Deborah actually gave the 15 year old cousin her car keys even though he's 15 and does not have a driver's license. So the 15 year old boy can drive them around while Deborah got in the back seat with Justin and statutory rate him again. She's assaulting this 14 year old boy in the car while a 15 year old boy was watching through the rear view mirror. It's also extremely important to note that this entire inappropriate legal relationship between Deborah and Justin from the moment that the line started blurring into the point she got arrested takes place over the span of only four weeks. That's how fast Deborah escalates throughout this entire ordeal. That summer Deborah and Justin actually made quite a few trips to visit Justin's 15 year old cousin on the second trip she takes the boys out shopping. She's seen on security cameras walking around the mall with these two underage boys and it's while she's on this shopping trip with a 14 and 15 year old boy that Deborah buys her husband Owen a present. I can only assume that this was an anniversary present because it was only a few weeks away from their first wedding anniversary. And on this trip Deborah statutory rapes Justin again in the back seat of her car but this time cousin was standing outside the card this time. And again all of these instances of assault they're taking place over the span of just a few days. And then one day while Deborah, Justin and cousin were out and about they were recognized by someone that knew them. A friend of cousin's mother sees her friend's underage son and her friend's underage nephew which was Justin in the parking lot and getting into the car of an adult female who was dressed in her words extremely provocatively. And this is woman's instinct. This is mother's intuition because this woman immediately reaches out to cousin's mom. And Justin's aunt cousin's mom is confronting her son. Why are you and your cousin getting in the car of this adult female who's barely wearing anything. And cousin just says that this woman that they were seen in the car with is just the older sister of one of their friends who is back from college I was giving them a ride and there wasn't anything for her to worry about right. Well again, mother's intuition and motherly instincts because Justin's aunt just feels like there's something wrong here. So she gets on the phone with her sister which was Justin's mom. And Justin's mother is pushing and pushing and pushing her son and Justin's denying, denying, denying everything but his mother was so persistent that Justin eventually tells his mom that he's been sleeping with a teacher. Now this next part I found pretty shaky sources trying to find a reliable source of how this happened but I'm assuming that Justin told Deborah that his mom knew about them because Deborah actually calls Justin's mom to tell her to take it easy on Justin. In an interview that Deborah does shortly after the aftermath of this entire case she actually talks about this moment when she calls Justin's mom and she truly thinks that she's a teenager just like Justin is in this moment. I'll play the clip for you in a second here. But when she calls up Justin's mother it's because she thinks that her and Justin are in trouble because there are two teenagers that got caught hooking up. Not that she's an adult teacher who's married and was caught assaulting a child. In the interview clip I'm about to play for you she literally thinks that she's a child. She mentions how they got caught by both of their parents even though she's a married teacher and an adult. I was more thinking of it as being a young girl who just got caught with her boyfriend and we shouldn't piss our parents off. It's okay. I don't mean to say that. And of course Justin's mother doesn't need to take it easy on Justin because she's not mad at Justin. She knows that her son is a victim. So the next phone call that Justin's mom gets on is with the police. When the police come to question Justin they need to validate that everything he's saying is what actually happened. In their minds they're thinking that maybe this is just a teenage boy's fantasy about his teacher and it's just something that went too far. So they're asking Justin if there's anything he can tell them that only someone would know if they've been intimate with Deborah LaFave. Justin in detail describes little tattoos that Deborah has that are only visible if she's not wearing any clothes. He also describes the way or the shape in which Deborah shaved her private area. Next to really get evidence against Deborah the investigators planned a staying operation where they had the 14 year old Justin call Deborah and record the phone call as Justin got Deborah to admit to their relations. The investigators coach Justin how to get Deborah to bring up specifics about what they've done without getting her suspicious and they also tell Justin to get Deborah to meet up again to hook up again. And parts of these recordings are available so I'll put in a little bit of them. I just want you to know that in these recordings Justin's voice is altered to protect his identity. It's actually lowered so on these recordings he will have a deep voice but please remember that that's not his real voice and this is literally a child, who sounds like a child. It is, it's you. So it's not over over. Why can't you just let go? Yeah, not yet. It's kind of sad. And when Justin invites Deborah to his place so they can hook up on the phone like the investigators coached him to do, Deborah actually has him pinky promise that his mom won't eat there. And as Deborah pulls up to this 14 year old boy's house she's surrounded by police immediately. And Deborah is like still in denial about what's happening that she's a predator that she's going to be arrested. She says that when all those police showed up that she thought that she ran a stop sign or something. In police custody to confirm the details that Justin gave them about Deborah's body she says that they had her stripped down they stripped searched her and then while she was completely naked they tied her up in stirrups restricting her. So her legs would remain spread open while they took photographs for their evidence. And Deborah said in her mind this made her the actual victim of assault in this case. They put me in stirrups like you would for kind of collage. Exactly. And I can remember just shaking and trying as hard as I could to clench my legs together to keep them shut. And in fact the nurse said because I was crying and she said honey were you raped? And I wanted to look at her and say yeah I've been raped. I was raped in all 13 I'm being raped right now forcing my legs apart and doing that. It was complete violation. They could have had the evidence. But you do understand that they could have had me standing up against a wall. Okay my my legs did not have to be spread wide open. Because Deborah assaulted Justin into counties she was facing felony charges in both of those counties and she would also be having a trial in both counties. She was facing multiple felony charges of lewd and lascivious battery on a minor. And if convicted Deborah LaFave was facing 30 years in prison. This was a huge media story. Deborah's name and face was everywhere. Within days of her arrest she became one of the most googled people in the entire world. And those slightly risque modeling photos that she took when she was 18 those really came back to bite her because those were plastered all over the media. This case really did become this huge media story and I think a lot of that has to do with her beauty. She was treated a lot differently than other criminals, even other female criminals. Debra was released on a $5,000 bond, which is already like, I roll, right? But in that bond hearing, the judge gave her some advice, not to talk to the media because they would find a way to twist her story? Strange. And only a few weeks before their first wedding anniversary, Owen LaFave found out that his wife was a predator instead of nourishing the relationship. Being intimate in the newlywed stage with him, she went after and was praying on a middle school boy. When she returned home from that bond hearing, the first thing Owen asked her was why. And Owen says that his wife broke down in tears and was begging him not to leave her. She even got down on the ground and was like holding onto his leg the same way that a child does when their dad is leaving for work. Owen LaFave did ultimately end up divorcing Debra and he did this before her trial even began or when her trial would have began. Owen LaFave also did a handful of televised interviews and also wrote a book about the case and about his ex-wife called Gorgeous Disaster, the tragic story of Debra LaFave. Full transparency, I have not read this book and I have no plans on reading it. I did read a few reviews on it and it was slim pickings to find anything that said anything good about the book from what I've gathered. A lot of people see this as a money grab that he's caching in on this child's trauma. A lot of the book was about himself, not even the actual crime that took place and that a lot of people find it to be more of a a journal dealing with his own trauma being married to a predator and not something that actually had to be published. Really early on in the stages of this case, Debra's lawyer's defense strategy was actually for her to plead insanity. In the time between her bond hearing and when they would have gone to trial, Debra spoke with three psychiatrists and had three separate evaluations. The finding was when Debra was diagnosed with depression in college and was prescribed Zoloft. She was actually wrongfully diagnosed and was then taking the wrong medicine for what she needed. Debra was at this point diagnosed with bipolar disorder and the finding from the psychiatrist was that her untreated bipolar disorder caused impaired judgment, impulsivity and hypersexuality. So her defense claimed that this explained her actions. Here we have a woman that by every societal standard can get a date, she can get a man. Yet she destroyed her career, destroyed her marriage. I believe the only logical reason why Debra LaFave did what she did was because of her mental illness. Now as we all know, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity is not easy at all to do. Like even Richard Chase, the vampire Sacramento we covered his case in October was found legally sane. So Debra's defense team actually never officially entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Instead for the charges that she was facing in Hillsboro County, Debra took a plea deal. Debra pled guilty in November of 2005 and was sentenced to three years on house arrest and seven years on probation. She got no jail time. And for the charges that she was facing in Marion County, she tried to make the exact same deal, but the judge in Marion County actually denied Debra taking a plea deal in his county because he wanted her to see the inside of a prison cell. So Debra was going to trial and court TV was planning on actually televising the entire thing because like I said, all eyes on the nation were glued to this story. It was sensational. It was a scandal. But there is a victim. There is a child in this case. And his parents actually supported the idea of Debra taking a plea deal because they wanted to avoid a trial. They wanted to protect their son from being televised. They wanted to protect their son from the media that had been following Debra LaFave for the past handful of years since she was first arrested. They also wanted to protect their child from having to testify, from having to relive all that trauma and face his abuser in court. So not only did Justin's parents tell the court that their son would not be testifying, Justin's cousin also refused to testify in solidarity. So in March of 2006, the prosecution made the extremely controversial decision to protect the victim and his identity and the state dropped the charges in Marion County against Debra LaFave. So the predator that was originally facing 30 years in prison walked away with probation and house arrest as well. But she got no time in jail for assaulting a 14 year old boy. Debra's attorney John Fitzgibbons actually infamously said to place Debi into a Florida state's women penitentiary to place an attractive young woman in that kind of hellhole is like putting a piece of raw meat in with the lions. Implying that he believes Debra is too pretty to go to prison. He's also implying comparing them to lions and comparing Debra to raw meat that he thinks all women in prison are predators which is ironic considering that it's his client that assaulted a middle school boy. And since you have this predator that was facing decades in prison and walked away with no jail time it really did seem like in the eyes of the law Debra LaFave was too pretty to go to prison. And at that time in the media landscape it was actually really hard to find anyone that thought that Debra LaFave was a criminal that she was a predator and sadly even today we're facing that same issue. Society does not see male predators and female predators the same way. When a female adult assaults a male child society sees that as a win for the young boy but when a male adult assaults a female child that predator is often murdered and tortured in prison. There's such a double standard. If you switched the gender roles here and I was telling you about a case where a 23 year old married man assaulted a 13 14 year old girl student it would be no question here who's the predator and who's the victim but in 2004 Debra wasn't seen as a pedophile. Debra LaFave was a 23 year old fit blonde haired blue eyed beautiful woman who could have easily gotten a date with any mature successful funny interesting wealthy if that's what she was into handsome man she could have walked into any room and I've gotten a date with any man that she wanted but Debra LaFave prayed and assaulted and groomed a 14 year old boy Google what a 14 year old boy looks like Google 14 year old boy look at the Google images that's what Debra LaFave is attracted to that's what Debra LaFave assaulted because Debra LaFave is a pedophile and a pretty face does not change that Debra LaFave served her three years on house arrests at her gorgeous Florida home with a pool she finished up her seven years of probation she registered as a sex offender but could not work at a school anymore obviously she actually couldn't have any contact with any minors and October 16 2014 her probation ended and she was a free woman in 2011 Debra LaFave gave birth to twin boys stilly registered sex offender she's no longer with her son's father and as since married a new man and still living in Tampa Florida according to her Wikipedia page she has since had a third child and ever since her arrest she has avoided the media and pretty much every interview the only reason interview she has ever done was with Matt Lauer following her guilty plea and that interview are like the clips that I've been splicing in throughout this entire episode. And that is the entire case of Deborah LaFave, the predator teacher that assaulted a middle school boy but was determined too pretty to go to prison. This is the part of the episode where I like to give my thoughts feelings and opinions on the case and you know get my takeaways but feel like it's pretty obvious how I feel about Deborah LaFave and this case. I don't love that Deborah LaFave had her charges dropped and didn't get any present time but I do believe that the prosecution had their heart in the right place and truly we're trying to put the victim first when her charges were dropped in Marion County and that doesn't happen quite often so if the victim and the victim's family were happy with that outcome then I support them completely. Today Deborah LaFave's victim Justin would be in his mid-30s and I truly wish him all of the best. While doing research in this case I really tried to see if there was any reliable information on the psychology behind these young married sometimes attractive female teachers assaulting their young male students because Deborah LaFave is certainly not the only case like this. Even now over 20 years later it literally seems like every other month there's another young married female teacher in the headlines doing exactly what Deborah LaFave did and all of them don't think that they've done anything wrong they don't see themselves as predators. Even on the episode we did on Mary K. Laterno it's a very infamous case similar to this she assaulted her 12-year-old student and actually went on to marry him and have two of his children. She did an interview decades later after she finished her present time where she literally said even decades later that she does not think that female predators exist. She does not think that females can sexually assault someone and she thinks that only men can be predators. I would hope that every adult that's a female regardless of being a teacher would know after my situation pay attention because there's law there are laws you might think when you're in a world you're we're close and no we weren't thinking about those things no I wasn't there were no laws back that would that anybody there were no situations. No there were laws there were laws Mary no there were statutory right. For males and if you look historically it was a male only and then the laws changed when the when equality let's go mad on this you want to because I'm ready. Sure. Okay so the equal rights amendments from state to state here in the United States and it even happened over in Australia New Zealand and what's called the equal rights amendment and what they did is they knew they gender neutraled the laws prior to that it was male only it was a male only statutory rape. So when did somebody get on the news and say hello world or hello New Zealand hello or I don't know how you do your states over there but if they're in states. Nobody got on nobody did a press release here in the state of Washington or in California where I was from and said we have now changed the laws it is no longer gender it is no longer gender specific a male only when I grew up sure as a teenager I knew that oh if that male the males knew because it was well known thing because of because a lot of dads out there were saying stay away from stay away from the daughters here in this house because I'll get a shot gone out because you're older and I can charge I can go to the police and it would be called statutory rape I don't care if you love my daughter you're 26 you're 30 whatever you are and my daughter's only 16 13 15 whatever it was a very well-known statutory rape was very well known it didn't matter if there was love it didn't matter if it was consensual and that word is there statutory meaning it doesn't matter if the it's if there's consent male only and it's not until and if you can look all across any kind of scholastic reading on this that goes historically and my name will even be there not until my situation in the law that conflict in the law did so you say are you saying that you saying there was confusion about the law at that time or that you didn't understand nobody knew it who knew it who knew it but you knew it you know Mary come on you knew that it was not right even if it wasn't black and white if you didn't if you didn't have the statutory papers there you knew morally morally is that that's what you're saying morally no I'm saying morally and legally not the legally part now but you were you were such a smart person why I'd never even been in a courtroom if I am a smart person but I'm like hyper focused in my area so you saying that I'm a smart person I'm revered as a teacher but I just didn't know it wasn't right as a 34 year old to be with a 13 year old sorry I'm not in a criminal sense but I thought look I'm not trying to get into semantics over that I'm just trying to accept in the end you stood up in court and pleaded guilty to two counts of child rape to some elements two counts of child rape well the only thing that that title is is a deterrent and I'm glad it's there as a deterrents when I now I understand the laws in general yeah but I don't want to bet the logistics of the law Mary I mean you stood up and said yes I did it I did something wrong no I fit the elements that equal guilty to the elements and we don't have to if we're if we really want to if you really want to go into like the let's see where do we want to go I just want to see I'm trying to get a sense of whether you think you did anything wrong at the time at the time and now over 20 years later society still sees these young boys as heroes not victims they still see these women these teachers as the ultimate fantasy a conquest and not the predators that they really are but that's why talking about these cases is so important to me so I really hope that we can keep a discussion going in the comment section why you guys are there let me know a case you want to see me cover next on hot in the case and I will see you guys all next week when we are hot in the case once again