Debra Lafave is the Florida teacher who plead guilty for having sex with a 14-year-old by while she was a teacher.
Now she was arrested again for interacting with a underage female co-worker at Danny Boy's restaurant.
Terms of Lafave's probation are she was to have no conversation with underage children about friends, high school, boyfriends, sex or family problems. Evidently she violated the terms through conversations she had with the co-worker.
Her attorney John Fitzgibbons has attempted to spin it like just ordinary conversation everyone has at work, but when taking into account the bizarre emotional makeup of this predator, it is an extremely dangerous action she took.
In a plea deal in Florida, Lafave pleaded guilty to lewd and lascivious behavior with the young boy. That behavior came from her emotional connection, in inappropriate conversations a normal adult would never have with a child. That's the reason the terms of the probation were directed toward no personal communication on the level mentioned above.
It's that emotional connection that creates the environment for the abuse. It's no trivial matter that she entered into that type of connection again.
This person needs to be locked away. I believe she is a predator, and the pathetic argument that she's mentally ill is lame, or that her past experiences are what caused it all are also lame.
If these arguments were true, all people in similar circumstances would behave the same. You don't see them doing what she did.
While I'm normally rather unrelenting when it comes to child exploitation of any kind, this new case is ridiculous.
Those on parole are normally expected to report employment changes to the parole officer, especially while under house arrest. Since officials in this case were aware of Debra's employment, part of the blame belongs to them. Maybe all of it.
Just about everyone knows that restaurants regularly recruit teenagers to staff their establishments. How does one work side by side with a minor without establishing contact?
Restauraunt employees are expected to communicate and work as a team. Waitresses, hostesses, kitchen employees and management are always communicating with each other in order to expedite hot food and cleanliness expectations of the customer.
This case is a sham, as it would appear at this point that parole officials are either dumber than a rock, unrealistic in their expectations, or simply fell asleep at the wheel.
The Parole Officer could have rejected this employment arrangement altogether, knowing that contact with minors was an unrealistic expectation of this kind of employment. Instead, thousands upon thousands of tax dollars will be spent prosecuting a case where the arrangements were dubious from the start.
Danny Vice
The Weekly Vice
http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com
Posted by: Danny Vice | December 17, 2007 3:16 PM | Permalink to Comment