Free Republic

NOVEMBER 22--In a sweetheart plea deal, a former Florida middle school teacher who had sex with a 14-year-old male student escaped a jail term today. Debra Lafave, 24, pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior and was sentenced to three years of community control, or house arrest, and ordered to register as a sex offender. Lafave's plea came on the eve of trial and was approved by the teen victim and his family (in a court affidavit filed today, the boy's mother wrote that a trial would "negatively affect my son's emotional and psychological well-being"). Lafave, who...

TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida teacher charged with having sex with a minor pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior as part of a plea deal. The deal provides that Greco Middle School teacher Debra Lafave, 25, will not serve time in jail in connection with multiple sex acts with a 14-year-old student unless she violates the terms of the plea agreement, which include seven years of probation. "I accept full responsibility for my actions," Lafave said during Tuesday's trial in Tampa. "To place an attractive young woman in that kind of hell hole is...