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...
