SEATTLE — Mary Kay Letourneau, the infamous teacher convicted of having sex with her 12-year-old student and later marrying him, was booked into King County Jail early Monday.
Letourneau was booked at 4:44 a.m. for failing to appear in court for a suspended driver’s license case. She was held in lieu of $5,000 bond.
Letourneau was arrested about 8 p.m. Sunday night on Interurban Avenue and had a warrant for failing to appear on a driving with a suspended license charge, according to King County Jail staff. Letourneau was not moved with the general jail population and was expected to post bail Monday.
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 Letourneau to attend their relicensing program in order for her to work to get her license back and avoid a criminal charge.
Letourneau failed to show for that relicensing program and a criminal case was filed against her.
The warrant was issued in September of 2013 when she failed to show up for a court hearing for that criminal case. The warrant, issued in district court, was for $5,000 and was outstanding when Letourneau was pulled over Monday.
Her first appearance in the traffic case is Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. The charge is criminal, however it is the lowest level criminal charge on the books.
Letourneau’s scandalous story began in June 1996 when police discovered Letourneau and her former 6th-grade student, Vili Fualaau, then 12, in a minivan parked at the Des Moines Marina. Letourneau said the boy was 18. The two were taken to a police station and later released. At that time, she was a married 34-year-old mother of four.
View a photo timeline of Letourneau's child rape case
In fall of that year, Letourneau was pregnant with a child fathered by Fualaau. Letourneau first met Fualaau when he was a student in her second-grade class at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien.
On Feb. 25, 1997, following a tip, police interviewed Fualaau. Letourneau was pulled out of a teacher's meeting and arrested for statutory rape.
In August 1997, in an agreement with prosecutors, Letourneau pleaded guilty to child rape in exchange for a 3-month jail sentence and probation. Judge Linda Lau accepted the deal on condition that Letourneau have no contact with Fualaau. By that time, Letourneau had given birth to a girl fathered by Fualaau.
After three months, she was released, but Seattle police officers found Letourneau and Fualaau in a car. Letourneau is arrested for a probation violation in Feb. 1998.
That winter, she was pregnant again by Fualaau.
In Feb. 1998, a judge, vacating the plea bargain, sentenced Letourneau to 7- 1/2 years in prison. She was released August 2004.
Letourneau and Fualaau were married in Woodinville on May 20, 2005. At that time, she was 43 and Fualaau was 22.
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