Crossing the line

Debra Lafave, under arrest in Temple Terrace, Fla. for lewd and lascivious battery—legalese that translates this way:  a 23-year-old teacher having sex with a 14-year-old student— a felony with a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Matt Lauer: Did the world crumble at that moment?  No?  You’re still in this state of—

Debra Lafave: I was mad at the fact (laughs) that they wouldn’t let me get my purse out of the car.  In fact, I—I was just so arrogant, just so, “God, I shouldn’t be back here.”

Lauer: “I didn’t do anything wrong?”

Lafave: Exactly. 

But Debra soon began to grasp the trouble she was in.  During their investigation, police had asked the boy questions to prove that Debra was his sex partner.  He described her tattoos, her tan lines. And another, even more intimate detail.  Now, the police needed photos to verify his descriptions.    

Lafave: They put me in stirrups like you would for—

Lauer: A gynecological exam.

Lafave: Exactly.  And I can remember just shaking.  And trying as hard as I could to clench my legs together to keep ‘em shut—And in fact, the nurse said, ‘cause I was crying. She said, “Honey, were you raped?”  And I wanted to look at her and say, “Yeah.  I’ve been raped.  I was raped when I was 13, I’m being raped right now.”  Forcing my legs apart and doing that.  It was complete violation.  They could have had—

Lauer: It was evidence.

Lafave: But you do you understand that they could have had me standing up against a wall, okay?  My legs did not have to be spread wide open like that. 

Those pictures never reached the public domain, but her old modeling shots did.  Within days of her arrest Debra Lafave became one of the most Googled people on the planet—and not everybody thought she was a criminal.

Lauer: There are some people out there who say this is every 14-year-old boy’s fantasy.  Did you hear that?

Lafave: Yeah.   I just think it’s stupid.  I can’t even think of any other word to describe it.  I think it’s ridiculous.

Soon authorities in Ocala, where the boy’s cousin lived, filed another set of charges for the sex acts that took place there.  If convicted, Debra now faced up to 30 years in prison.  And she faced the destruction of her marriage.

Lafave:  I spent the night in jail.  And then the next day is when I actually saw him.  So he knew—

Lauer: What did he say to you?

Lafave: Right away he was just very angry.  I can remember bawling my eyes out. When he was walking out the door, I think I literally grabbed onto his leg and squeezed and he was dragging me on the floor because I just didn’t want him to leave.

Lauer: You knew at that moment your marriage was over?

Lafave: I knew it by the way that he reacted to it.

Lauer: Did you know your career was over?

Lafave: Well, they—they told me.  So, yeah.

Debra, the English major wrote a poem about her predicament:

Her restless heart beats abstractly in circles/her wandering mind prays endlessly for miracles...

And it seemed like it would take a miracle to keep her out of prison.  The facts in the case were overwhelmingly against her.  Debra’s attorney, John Fitzgibbons, planned a novel defense.

John Fitzgibbons: Here we have a woman that, by every societal standard, can get a date.  Can get a man.  Yet, she destroyed her career, destroyed her marriage. I believe the only logical reason why Deborah Lafave did what she did was because of her mental illness.

According to three psychiatrists hired by the defense, Debra has bipolar disorder.  Dr. Eric Hollander—who is not associated with the case—is chair of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City. 

Dr. Eric Hollander, psychiatrist: When women become hypersexual, the number one disorder that seems to drive that hypersexuality in women, is bipolar disorder.

And, Hollander says, if a person with bipolar disorder is mistakenly treated for depression—as Debra says she was—the symptoms can actually get worse.

Hollander: They’ll have more frequent manic episodes, the manic episodes will be more severe, and the impulsive behavior, like the impulsive sexual behavior, can get worse.

It would seem to explain a lot about Debra...  sometimes so depressed she could barely speak and sometimes talking a blue streak.  She was sometimes unable to dress herself, sometimes dressing provocatively.  Sometimes barely able to leave the house, sometimes driving a hundred miles to have sex in the back seat. 

But is bipolar disorder an explanation... or an excuse?

Lafave: You know what, I don’t want to blur the lines between doing something as heinous as what I did, and being bipolar.  But, yes, symptoms of bipolar definitely contributed to my mind frame.

Lauer: Did you know what you were doing was wrong?

Lafave: At the time, I don’t think I did.  Obviously not because I wouldn’t have done it.

But in his sworn statement to investigators, the 14-year-old said she told him something quite different.

Lauer: Didn’t you say that, “One of the things that turns me on is knowing that I’m not supposed to be having sex with you?”

Lafave: You know what, there’s a few comments that I have heard, and this is the first time that I’m speaking out—that are not true, period.

Lauer: Okay, so you never said to him, “It’s a turn-on to me because I know we are not supposed to be having sex?”

Lafave: Absolutely—no way. I never, ever, ever said that.

Debra Lafave:  blonde, beautiful, bipolar.   Would her explanation be enough to keep her out of prison?

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