Posted on 12/04/2001 4:20:54 PM PST by PJ-Comix
The middle school student who police say had an 18-month affair with his teacher testified at her trial Monday that he lived a teenage fantasy.
The teen said Beth Friedman, 43, seduced him by plying him with lavish gifts -- trips, money, clothes, jewelry, a car and drugs -- and even did his homework for him.
The affair was a fantasy, Friedman's lawyer countered, but one that existed purely in the teen's imagination.
Friedman is charged with indecent assault, unlawful sexual activity with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She faces 76 years in prison if convicted.
``She was the teacher everybody wanted because she let you do whatever you wanted in her class,'' the teen, now 19 and working as a roofer, testified in the first day of Friedman's trial. ``I could do stuff other people would get in trouble for, and she would just look the other way and pretend she didn't notice. So I started to sit at her desk just to see what would happen, and she just let me sit there all the time.''
The teen, who was 14 when he met Friedman, testified that he used drugs, his grades in school were ``horrible,'' and he was often in trouble for fighting. He said his friendship with Friedman grew as she began giving him rides home from school, and eventually became friends with his mother, the teen testified.
He would eat lunch with Friedman and another teacher in their room because he was new to Silver Lakes Middle School and couldn't get along with other kids in the cafeteria.
``They ordered pizza and Chinese food,'' the teen testified. ``I'd come back bragging to the other kids `I had Chinese food for lunch, what did you have?' ''
She started doing his school work, and getting permission from other teachers to let him sit in her room all day.
``She'd take my work from me and do it. Sometimes I didn't even know it was done. I'd just get a grade back,'' he said.
Friedman started taking him and his younger brother to a video arcade, then to movies and out to dinner.
``I'd page her and say: `Me and my friends are hungry,' and she'd come take us out to eat,'' he said. ``But then it got too expensive so she'd just take me and one friend out.''
Eventually, the teen's brother, mother and mother's boyfriend moved into Friedman's Hollywood condo. She took the boy on trips to Busch Gardens, Universal Studios and the Keys, with her and the teen sleeping in one bed and a friend of his or his brother sleeping in another, he said.
On one of those trips, he said, e Friedman performed a sex act on him while his brother slept. On the way home in the car, he said ]she performed another.
When he was 15, he wanted a car.
``She said: `If you have sex with me I'll buy you a car,' '' said the teen, who chewed gum and played with a rubber band on the witness stand. ``So I did, and she did.''
The teen said Friedman gave him money to buy drugs, introduced him to cocaine and would challenge him to contests to see who could take the most Xanax without falling asleep. She also bought him lavish gifts and let him drive her car and her father's Rolls-Royce, he said.
``Whatever I wanted, she got it for me,'' he said.
But Friedman's lawyer, David Bogenschutz, peppered the boy with questions about his story, particularly the teen's assertion that the affair ended after Friedman offered him $25,000 to impregnate her.
The teen said he asked his mother, who had been unaware of the affair, for advice. She went to the police, and he got angry because he didn't want the affair to end. He moved out of the house and in with a stripper, but sent Friedman notes asking for money.
Broward Circuit Judge Stanton Kaplan occasionally had to intervene when the teen gave defiant answers to Bogenschutz's questions.
``Why would a law school-educated teacher, who lives in a nice place, who drives a newer Jeep Cherokee, whose father drives a Rolls-Royce, pay $25,000 to be impregnated by a 16-year-old dropout with a drug habit?'' Bogenschutz asked the boy, who shrugged his shoulders in response.
Prosecutor Stacey Honowitz told jurors that no matter how consensual or bizarre the relationship seemed, it is still against the law for an adult to have sex with a minor.
``She did it for love, she did it because she craved him,'' Honowitz said. ``The theory that she's a wonderful, beautiful teacher can't protect her when she crossed that line.''
The trial continues today.
I don't have anything against you PJ. What I have a problem with, I have already laid out on the thread. I have to go now. Regards [again.]
Michelle
I second that... ugggg.
You assume quite alot.
Almost all of life's experiences have positive AND negative aspects. Learning one of life's greatest lessons from an older, considerate, and experienced teacher (pardon the pun) is a blessing more than a curse. The French are not complete idiots.
You are perfectly welcome to teach your boys that life is black and white, and to believe so yourself. But in my opinion you are completely wrong. In my experience there are only shades of gray.
This thread has been the most humorous and human I have yet seen on FR. But your posts are to me, beyond the bounds of humanity. Good luck with your sons. Try not to be too disappointed when they prove themselves to be human.
I wrote this to Susan Paytner, at one of the two Seattle daily papers, a few years ago when the whole Mary LeTourneau story was running around up here. It ran and, once in a while I STILL get a piece of mail from a parent or psychology student about it.
Maybe this will help give some of you "kid's in heaven" pinheads a different perspective of pedophilia.
Susan,
When I was a young man, just prior to the seventh grade, a student-teacher relationship with my grade school music instructor developed into a sexual affair lasting until I was a freshman in high school. I remember, at the time, how wonderful I thought it to be; afternoons after school and weekends of learning new experiences and feelings - growing into a man.
She had said that she was in love with me and, to this day, I believe that was true. I suppose I loved her too or; as much as I could at that age.
One day, during 7th grade, she took me aside and explained that she had missed her period and I was faced with the cascading fear of becoming a father in grade school. It was the first emotional blow of my life and I’ll never forget it. I remember even the weather that day. My fear seems bizarre to me now because, then, I could barely conceptualized what pregnancy was and had no way of understanding the nightmarish problem of how she could sneak the money for an abortion out of her families checking account without her husband finding out. I didn’t even know how enraged my parents and others would be if I did become the father of one of her children; though I suspected the whole situation was not ideal. To our relief her “pregnancy” turned out to be a cyst blocking one of her ovaries and our physical relationship continued on and we never looked back.
Yet, for all the times I enjoyed with her and how much, in one way, they meant to me, in my adulthood I began to take stock of the damage which was done: I never developed the skills of young romance and my ability to relate to girls my age was completely destroyed. I became so inhibited that, even in my early twenties, I could barely speak to women. I never went on dates or even to my prom. Years after the relationship ended I told my parents about it and they finally understood why I had sliced my wrists open one night when I was 15. I lived through that but, sometimes I wonder what the real number of teenagers who don’t make it is. All I really gained from our affair was the knowledge of a man while I awkwardly lived in the world of children.
I wouldn’t have thought to relate this story to you as I feel that I’ve made peace with my experience and my life has moved on, however, all day today—on the radio, in the paper, and through the unaware gossip of my co-workers—I’ve heard all sorts of opinions of the LeTourneau affair and I’ve become flooded with the memories of my childhood. With the definitive hand of having been there I’d like to make something clear to everyone: Mary LeTourneau is a pedophile. There’s nothing more to it. She violated her duty as a teacher and adult to protect children from the graveness of the world. What her student may have learned with girls his age is one thing but, she inflicted permanent damage on a boy who shouldn’t have been with a woman until he was a man. She needs to be put in jail just as any man would be if he manipulated a young girl into bed.
Over the years it’s been interesting to me that the 3 or 4 male friends I’ve told this story to all thought it was a dream come true but, my mother and the few women I’ve told were, each one, enraged and revulsed by it. I’ve wondered why that is but I’ve never been able to figure the answer. I know though, the women’s reaction has been the mature and proper one.
I believe the pain molested boys feel may be fundamentally different from that of molested girls but, one should not convince oneself that it is any less because boys don’t, or culturally shouldn’t, show it. No one should convince themselves for one moment that this boy will live a better or unscarred life from this pedophilic relationship.
There is an irony of how I feel about my experience though – even now when I think about it – I don’t know if I could have sent the woman who molested me to jail. It hurt to be with her but, it would have hurt to lose her too. Life is strange that way.
I don’t feel any better about today Susan but, thanks for reading.
It also seems that young johnny found it on his own.
Perhaps just another case of "teenage rebellion"?
Nope. Not a one. To a person, they were all gaunt schoolmarm types, whether they were 80 or only 25. I probably would have had hotter teachers if I'd gone to a private Catholic school where all the teachers were nuns.
He mentioned it briefly. BTW, I think Howard should get this kid on the air and examine his mind. Most likely the kid is making the whole thing up. What is frightening is the teacher could be facing 76 years in prison. Talk about OVER-REACTION!!!
From the article:
He would eat lunch with Friedman and another teacher in their room because he was new to Silver Lakes Middle School and couldn't get along with other kids in the cafeteria.I haven't been following this trial, but I'd be curious to know if any other teachers or students testified. It seems like it would be fairly easy to verify or disprove if this kid spent all day in the teacher's class, and if he ate lunch in the teacher's room.``They ordered pizza and Chinese food,'' the teen testified. ``I'd come back bragging to the other kids `I had Chinese food for lunch, what did you have?' ''
She started doing his school work, and getting permission from other teachers to let him sit in her room all day.
``She'd take my work from me and do it. Sometimes I didn't even know it was done. I'd just get a grade back,'' he said.
And you know this....HOW??? More than likely the kid is making the whole story up. But let's not take any chances. Let's LYNCH this teacher now! YEEEEHAAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!
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