No jail time for Lafave
The former middle school teacher pleaded guilty to the charges in Hillsborough and Marion counties. She will serve three years of community control.
Ste. Petersburg Times, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A., By CANDACE RONDEAUX, November 22, 2005
TAMPA - Debra Lafave, the former Tampa middle school teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old male student, will avoid prison under a plea deal announced Tuesday.
Lafave, whose trial was scheduled to start Dec. 5, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery, a felony, in exchange for a sentence of two years community control on the first count and one year on the second count. Those sentences will be served consecutively and will be followed by seven years of probation. Community control is a form of house arrest.
Lafave will be allowed to petition the court to convert her third year of community control to probation if she successfully completes the first two. The plea deal will also cover charges Lafave faces in Marion County for having sex with the boy there.
She was arrested in June 2004 after police said she had sex with the Greco Middle School student at her townhouse, classroom and in her car. The case of the attractive 25-year-old teacher soon became major fodder for tabloid newspapers and television shows, drawing international attention. She faced up to 15 years in prison on each of the counts against her.
Hillsborough prosecutor Michael Sinacore said the state, which previously had insisted on prison time, agreed to the new plea deal at the request of the victim's family.
"The victim's family relayed to us they wanted this case over with. Unfortunately, the intense media coverage in this case has put the victim in even more of a spotlight than could be anticipated," Sinacore said.
Lafave also must complete a sex offender treatment program.
In a statement to the court, Lafave apologized Tuesday to the victim and his family, and said "I accept full responsibility for my actions, and I am very sorry for everything that has occurred."
Lafave's attorney, John Fitzgibbons, had planned to use the insanity defense. At one point as the case progressed, plea negotiations broke down, with Fitzgibbons saying the state wanted three years in prison, which he considered too much.
"To place an attractive young woman in that kind of hell hole is like placing a piece of raw meat in with the lions," he said in July. "I don't think Debbie could survive it."
Scotland's National Newspaper
96% of women are liars, honest
5,000 women polled
Half the women said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby's real father.
Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.
Paternity Fraud TV Show
CBC News: Sunday
An indepth look at paternity fraud, men's and children's rights. 10 minutes.
This segment of CBC News: Sunday was on a paternity fraud case in which the husband was ordered to pay child support for 2 children which weren't his biological children.
Canada's largest
national newspaper
Mommy's little secret
The article contains info about children's identity fraud at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
December 14, 2002.
Includes interview with employees of Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada who admit they deny children's identity information to husbands/male partners of mothers who want to hide the real identity of their child because they had an affair. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of The Child specifically supports a child's human right to have a relationship with both his/her biological parents. In addition, this article is proof that The Hospital for Sick Children ("Sick Kids") supports paternity fraud.
Further "Sick Kids" supports a mother's rights only, which they view, supersedes 3 other people's rights, namely, the rights of the biological father, the rights of the mother's male partner/husband and the child's identity rights.
One in 25 fathers 'not the daddy'
Up to one in 25 dads could unknowingly be raising another man's child, UK health researchers estimate.
Increasing use of genetic testing for medical and legal reasons means Read More ..uples are discovering the biological proof of who fathered the child.
The Liverpool John Moores University team reached its estimate based on research findings published between 1950 and 2004.
The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Biological father
Professor Mark Bellis and his team said that the implications of so-called
paternal discrepancy were huge and largely ignored, even though the
incidence was increasing.
In the US, the number of paternity tests increased from 142,000 in 1991 to 310,490 in 2001.
Adulterous woman ordered to pay husband £177,000 in 'moral damages'
The Daily Mail, UK
18th February 2009
An adulterous Spanish woman who conceived three children with her lover has been ordered to pay £177,000 in 'moral damages' to her husband.
The cuckolded man had believed that the three children were his until a DNA test eventually proved they were fathered by another man.
The husband, who along with the other man cannot be named for legal reasons to protect the children's identities, suspected his second wife may have been unfaithful in 2001.