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Mary Fualaau (formerly Letourneau; Mary Katherine Schmitz; January 30, 1962) is an American former schoolteacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child, her former student, Vili Fualaau, who was 12 or 13 at the time. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's child. Her sentence called for six months in jail, with three months suspended, but would extend to 7.5 years with any contact with Fualaau. The case received international attention.

Shortly after spending three months in jail, the police caught Letourneau in a car with Fualaau. A judge found that she had violated the conditions of the suspended sentence and imposed the full sentence of 7.5 years in prison. Eight months after returning to prison, she gave birth to Fualaau's second child. After imprisoned from 1998 to 2004, in May 2005 Letourneau and Fualaau began a 19 year marriage.

Early life and education
Mary Katherine Schmitz was born in 1962 in Tustin, California, the daughter of Mary E. ( Suehr), a chemist, and John G. Schmitz (1930–2001), a community college instructor. She was known as Mary Kay to her family and called "Cake" by her father. She was the fourth of seven children, raised in a "strict Catholic household." In 1973, Mary's three-year-old brother drowned in the family pool at their home in the Spyglass Hill section of Corona del Mar, California while she played with another brother in the shallow end.

Mary attended Cornelia Connelly High School, an all-girls' Catholic school in Anaheim, California, where she was a member of the cheerleading squad for Servite High School. She was also a student at Arizona State University.

Political family
When Mary was two years old, her father began his political career and successfully ran as a Republican for a seat in the state legislature. He held positions as a California state senator and U.S. Congressman, winning a special election for an unexpired term in 1970 and the general election later that year. After a primary defeat in 1972, he changed parties and ran for president as an American Independent Party candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. In 1978, her father was re-elected as a Republican to the California State Senate. He intended to run for the U.S. Senate in 1982, but his political career was permanently damaged that year when it was revealed that he had fathered two children out of wedlock during an affair with a former student at Santa Ana College, where he had taught political science. Her father's affair caused her parents to separate, but they later reconciled.

Her brother John Schmitz was the deputy counsel to President George H. W. Bush. Her other brother, Joseph E. Schmitz, was Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense under George W. Bush, was a senior executive with Academi, and is a foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump.

First marriage
When Schmitz was attending Arizona State University, she met and married fellow student Steve Letourneau, and she conceived the first of her four children with Letourneau. She said that she was not in love with Letourneau and married him after being urged to do so by her parents. The couple moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where Letourneau found work as a baggage handler for Alaska Airlines. After a year in Alaska, he was transferred to Seattle, Washington, and she gave birth to their second child. She graduated from Seattle University in 1989 with a teaching degree. She began teaching second grade at Shorewood Elementary School in the Seattle suburb of Burien.

The Letourneaus' marriage allegedly included domestic abuse, financial problems, and extramarital affairs. While imprisoned for child rape in May 1999, the couple divorced, and he gained custody of their four children. In 2010, the Letourneaus became grandparents when their oldest son had a daughter.

Crime and media attention
Born in 1983, Vili Fualaau, a Samoan-American, was Letourneau's student in both his second-grade and sixth-grade classes at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Washington. When she was 34 in the summer of 1996, after Vili had graduated from Mary's 6th grade class, her relationship with the 12 or 13-year-old Fualaau turned from platonic to sexual. On June 18, 1996, police came upon Letourneau in a car with Fualaau in a marina parking lot. She was seen jumping into the front seat while Fualaau pretended to sleep in the back. She and Fualaau initially provided false names, and Letourneau lied about Fualaau's age, saying that he was 18. Fualaau said that no touching had taken place. Letourneau said she and her husband had gotten into an argument, and that Fualaau, who she said was a family friend who had been staying with them that night, witnessed the argument and ran away upset. She said she left to find him. The police took Letourneau and Fualaau to the police station, where Fualaau's mother was called. The mother was asked what should be done, and said to return Fualaau to Letourneau. She later said that if the police had alerted her to the fact that Letourneau had lied about Fualaau's age and what had occurred in the car, she would not have allowed her son to leave with Letourneau. Letourneau reported to court in March 1997 after a relative of her husband contacted the police. Her first child with Fualaau, a daughter, was born in May 1997 while she was awaiting sentencing.

With over 100 journalists observing, Letourneau pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape. She was sentenced to six months in the county jail (three of which were suspended for time served and good behavior) and three years of sex offender treatment. She was not required to register as a sex offender. Letourneau also agreed to avoid contact with Fualaau. She became the subject of an international tabloid scandal, was targeted by delusional strangers, and experienced symptoms of degraded mental health.

On February 3, 1998, two weeks after completing her jail sentence, Letourneau was found by police in a car at 3 a.m. with Fualaau near her home. Letourneau initially said she was alone in the car. She and Fualaau provided false names when asked for identification. Although it was reported that sexual intercourse had occurred in the car, police testified that they saw no indication the two had sex that evening, and Fualaau told a police detective that he and Letourneau had kissed frequently and that he had touched Letourneau on the thigh, but that no sexual intercourse had occurred. There was evidence the two had met several times since Letourneau's release from jail on January 2. When she was arrested, police found $6,200 in cash, baby clothes, and her passport inside the car. Receipts for $850 in purchases made since January 20 for men's and young men's clothing and infant wear were found. Letourneau said that the money was for dermatology treatments and for her divorce lawyer, and that some of the men's clothing were gifts for relatives and for herself since she enjoyed wearing oversized men's clothing. With more than 125 journalists observing, Letourneau was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for violating the terms of her probation. In interviews and in a book on her involvement with Fualaau, Letourneau said the couple had sex in January.

In October 1998, while serving her second stint in jail, Letourneau gave birth to her second daughter by Fualaau. That year, Letourneau and Fualaau co-authored a book published in France called Only One Crime, Love (Un seul crime, l'amour). In 1999 a second book appeared, this one published in the United States, but written with only minimal cooperation from her, and none from Fualaau: If Loving You Is Wrong. During her imprisonment, Letourneau was allowed visits from her children but was denied permission to attend her father's funeral. While in prison Letourneau tutored fellow inmates, created audio books for blind readers, participated in the prison choir and "rarely missed Mass." Because of her notoriety, Letourneau was unpopular with other inmates, "sassed guards and balked at work" and, reportedly as punishment for this, spent "18 of her first 24 months" in solitary confinement. In one instance, Letourneau endured six months in solitary when letters she tried to send to Fualaau were intercepted.

In 2002, Fualaau's family sued the Highline School District and the city of Des Moines, Washington, for emotional suffering, lost wages, and the costs of rearing his two children, claiming the school and the Des Moines Police Department had failed to protect him from Letourneau. Following a ten-week trial, no damages were awarded.

Release from prison and marriage to Fualaau
Letourneau was released to a community placement program on August 4, 2004 amid heavy news media attention, and registered the following day with the King County Sheriff's Office as a Level 2 sex offender.

After Letourneau's release from prison in 2004, Fualaau, then age 21, persuaded the court to reverse the no-contact order against Letourneau. Letourneau and Fualaau married on May 20, 2005, in the city of Woodinville, Washington, in a ceremony at the Columbia Winery. Exclusive access to the wedding was given to the television show Entertainment Tonight, and photographs were released through other media outlets. Letourneau said she planned to have another child and return to the teaching profession and indicated that by law she was permitted to teach at private schools and community colleges.

During an Inside Edition interview, Fualaau said, "I'm not a victim. I'm not ashamed of being a father. I'm not ashamed of being in love with Mary Kay." Attorney Anne Bremner, who met Letourneau in 2002 during Fualaau's civil suit, said that Letourneau considered her relationship with Fualaau to be "eternal and endless". According to Bremner, "Nothing could have kept the two of them apart."

On May 9, 2017, after almost 12 years of marriage, Fualaau filed for separation from Letourneau but later withdrew the filing.

As of April 2018, Fualaau was working at a home improvement store and as a professional DJ and Letourneau was working as a legal assistant. An article in People magazine quoted an insider source who said, "They know what everyone thinks about their relationship [...] And they don't care. They really never have. The wrong stuff that happened was so long ago. They are two grown adults who are living their lives now."

In February 2019, it was announced that the couple again filed for legal separation and are scheduled to separate on August 1st.

In popular culture

 * In 2001, the Court TV (now TruTV) television series Mugshots released an episode about Letourneau's case titled "Mary K. Letourneau and Vili Fualaau".
 * On October 2, 2010, Paul Brittain and Abby Elliott portrayed Vili Fualaau and Mary Kay Letourneau in a "What Up with That?" sketch on Saturday Night Live.
 * The TV series Barbara Walters Presents American Scandals covered the case in December 2015. Walters interviewed the couple about their relationship and their two daughters.
 * Letourneau and her husband were the DJ and hosts for three "Hot for Teacher Night" promotions at a Seattle night club.