Jurors reject lawsuit over Letourneau

By Gene Johnson

Associated Press

KENT — A King County Superior Court jury on Monday declined to award damages to a young man who fathered two children with his sixth-grade teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau.

Vili Fualaau, 18, and his mother, Soona Vili, had sued the Highline School District and the City of Des Moines, but after a nine-week trial, jurors found that neither school officials nor police could reasonably have been expected to prevent the relationship.

"We never did feel we had responsibility for what happened," Geri Fain, assistant school district superintendent, said after the verdict. "As soon as we found out there was a problem, we moved quickly to resolve it — not only the Mary Kay Letourneau issue but to provide support" for the boy.

Fualaau was a precocious 12-year-old at Shorewood Elementary in Burien when he began having sexual relations with Letourneau in 1996. Letourneau was 34 and a married mother of four.

Now she’s serving 7 1/2years for child rape.

Fualaau was not in court when the verdict was read. His mother sighed deeply.

"The jury has reached its verdict and … we respect it," said their attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr. He said no decision had been reached on whether to appeal.

"The family brought this case for one reason and one simple reason only: so that the institutions that are designed to protect our children, when they have indications sexual abuse has occurred, they respond to those indications," he said.

In a poll of the jurors, the vote was 10-1 against liability for the district, with one abstention, and 10-2 against liability for the city. A civil court jury need not be unanimous.

Attorney Anne Bremner, representing the city of Des Moines, said that while she felt sorry about what had happened to the boy, "This case was defended at taxpayer expense. It’s hard to feel sympathy when we felt there was no case to begin with. It was through no fault of ours that these things happened."

Bremner and school district lawyer Mike Patterson suggested during the trial that the lawsuit was the brainchild of Fualaau’s mother, who they said had simply run out of other ways to profit from her son’s sad tale. She collected — and promptly spent — about $180,000 for discussing the case on talk shows and with supermarket tabloids.

Vance had suggested jurors award as much as $2.4 million.

During the trial, he said the relationship was "torture, not true love."

But jurors also heard testimony that earlier, Fualaau and Letourneau had long insisted they were in love. They wrote a book together — "Un Seul Crime, L’Amour," or "Only One Crime, Love." Their story was also the subject of a USA Network movie, "All American Girl."

When he testified during the trial, Fualaau said he still believes Letourneau was the best thing that ever happened to him. But he said he wished their relationship had been different.

"When I was young, I wanted to have sex. I wanted to have sex with my teacher," he said. "I wasn’t thinking."