Word: vilis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fall, Mary realized she was pregnant. She and Steve hadn't had much sex in the previous few months, and the baby was definitely Vili's. Steve was by then very suspicious of the amount of time his wife and her student were spending together. When he learned that Mary was pregnant and that Vili was the father, Steve was enraged. Gehrke and Huff, who works as both the Fualaaus' lawyer and as Mary's media representative, say Steve ranted about "that n_____ baby" in front of their children. He even confronted his 13-year-old rival, demanding to know...
...Letourneaus were in hell. Steve wasn't sure what to do. Take his children from their mother? In the end, a relative of his called Mary's school district anonymously. School officials immediately phoned the cops, who questioned Vili the next morning. He told the truth, and later that day, in February 1997, the school principal called Mary out of a faculty meeting. A detective was waiting to arrest...
...rapist. How could she do that? From behind the scenes, the image of a truculent, unrepentant Mary then emerged. She stopped taking the Depakote--her doctor approved, wrongly thinking she would quickly change to lithium, another medication used to treat bipolar disorder--and started telling friends that she and Vili were truly in love. "Since when do people who love each other have to defend it?" she would ask. She quarreled with her court-approved treatment counselor, Terry Copeland, who in 15 years had never seen a sex offender in his care return to prison for committing another sex offense...
Letourneau believes that Gehrke could have sought a deal for her under a molestation rather than rape statute, one carrying a maximum penalty of 15 months rather than 89 months. She has begun reminding people that Vili was the "aggressor" in their relationship and that without violence there can be no rape. But David Allen, a Seattle criminal-defense attorney, says, "Molestation is a different crime, involving touching or fondling. Rape of a child in Washington is defined as any penetration, however slight. It's age-driven, and who the aggressor is or whether it's consensual doesn't matter...
Another long shot for Mary could be a claim that Vili raped her, since she was vulnerable and didn't have the will to resist his come-ons. So far, however, Mary has avoided putting any legal burdens on her young lover. Meanwhile, her friends and lawyers are bickering about how to proceed. The infighting has worsened in the past few weeks. Howards has tried, unsuccessfully, to get them all to shut up, and she is the only one who isn't talking...