Mary Kay Letourneau Set to Leave Prison

Aug. 4, 2004 -- Mary Kay Letourneau, the former teacher notorious for having sex with a sixth-grader in what she described as a love affair, has become a free woman after seven years in prison for child rape.

Letourneau, 42, was released from Washington Corrections Center for Women near Gig Harbor, Wash., early this morning. Her relationship with Vili Fualaau began in 1996 when she was a 34-year-old married mother of four and he was her 12-year-old student at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Wash. They have two daughters.

In an exclusive interview with Kathi Goertzen of ABC affiliate KOMO in Seattle, the former teacher said that after her time in prison she wants to focus on being a mother — not reuniting with Fualaau.

"I'm not allowing myself to think about being with him," she said. "We had a beautiful relationship and I value it for what it was."

At the same time, she said she would have another baby with him. "If we are so blessed to continue a relationship and if that's what he wants, for him I would."

When asked if she thought that after all these years she and Faulaau may have drifted apart, she smiled and said, "no." When asked if she regrets what she did, she replied, "Knowing what we had, I should have waited."

Popular Reads

Israel conducts strikes in Iran, IDF says

• Jun 7, 9:43 PM

Missing American student found dead in Japan

• Jun 7, 8:47 AM

Veteran actor James Handy fatally stabbed in Los Angeles, police say

• Jun 5, 7:44 PM

And she started to cry when she talked about the impact on her children, saying, "I can't touch the pain my children have gone through."

Letourneau told KOMO her main goal now is reunification with her whole family, including her mother. She said she is in the "healing process" with all six children — the four she had with her ex-husband Steve Letourneau, and the girls she had with Fualaau.

Audrey, 7, and Georgia, almost 6, are being raised by Fualaau's mother. A lawyer for Fualaau, now 21, has asked a judge to lift a no-contact order so he and Letourneau can discuss the girls. In the motion, Fualaau, the lawyer argues, "does notfear Mary K. Letourneau," adding that the sole basis for criminal case was Fualaau's age at the time.