Former Teacher Mary Kay Letourneau Arrested

Former teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who served more than seven years in prison for raping one of her sixth-grade students, was booked into King County Jail early Monday.

Letourneau was arrested around 8 pm Sunday night for failing to appear in court on a suspended driver’s license charge. She had been pulled over for expired car tabs last January and was found to have a suspended driver’s license for unpaid traffic tickets. The King County Prosecutor’s Office ordered the 51-year-old to attend a relicensing program in order to avoid a criminal charge. She failed to show up for the program, and a criminal case was filed against her.

Letourneau is due in court Tuesday at 1:30 pm, and is being held in lieu of $5,000 bond.

Mary Kay Letourneau made headlines in June 1996 when police found her and having sex with her then 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau, in a minivan parked at the Des Moines Marina. Letourneau said Fualaau was 18; they were taken to a police station and later released. She was arrested for statutory rape in February 1997, and pleaded guilty to child rape in exchange for a 3-month jail sentence and probation in August 1997. By that time, she had given birth to a baby girl fathered by Fualaau.

Letourneau was released three months later, but police — this time in Seattle — again found her and Fualaau in a car. She was arrested for probation violation in February 1998, and a judge vacated her plea bargain, sentencing Letourneau to 7 1/2 years in prison. She gave birth to her second daughter with Fualaau in October. She and Fualaau married on May 20, 2005. She was 43 and he was 22.

Mary Kay Letourneau became a grandmother for the first time in 2011 when her eldest son from her first marriage became a father.

“It’s just a big joy and a blessing to have a newborn in the family,” Fualaau said.