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Teacher who had affair with 12-year-old Samoan student, said she 'didn't know' it was illegal

Mary Kay Letourneau, seen here with Vili Fualaau in 2006

Seattle, WASHINGTON — Mary Kay Letourneau, the Seattle elementary school teacher who was convicted of raping her sixth-grade student before she ultimately married him and had two daughters, said in a new interview she didn't know the love affair was a crime.

“If someone had told me, if anyone had told me, there is a specific law that says this is a crime,” she said on “Sunday Night” on Australia’s Channel Seven. “I did not know. I’ve said this over and over again. Had I’d known, if anyone knows my personality. Just the idea, this would count as a crime.”

She also said she felt “absolutely” wrongfully convicted.

She added that although Vili Fualaau was 12 years old at the time, 22 years her junior, she claimed he “was the boss” and pursued her, as news.com.au reported.

Letourneau, now 56, became tabloid fodder when she pleaded guilty in 1997 to child rape. She was 34 and a married mother of four when her relationship with Fualaau began. The couple married on May 20, 2005, in Woodinville, Washington, after she served over seven years in prison.

Fualaau asked the court for a legal separation from Letourneau in May 2017, but they have reconciled since.

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