It is unclear whether the boy was a student of the young teacher, who has been married less than a year.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published June 23, 2004
TAMPA - Eleven months ago, Greco Middle School teacher Debra Beasley Lafave sparkled in a cap-sleeve white wedding gown as she danced with her groom, a handsome 25-year-old Wisconsin native named Kristian Lafave.
It was a celebratory turn for the Beasley family, rocked two years earlier by the death of Debra Lafave's sister, who was 24 years old and five months pregnant when an intoxicated Army captain crashed his Jeep into her Nissan.
On Tuesday morning, the Beasley family faced another crisis.
Lafave's husband and parents looked on as Lafave, 23, wearing loose jail-issued orange pants and top, stood before Judge Walter Heinrich on charges that she had sex with a 14-year-old boy this month.
Heinrich set Lafave's bail at $5,000, and she was released from Hillsborough County jail at 2 p.m. She was not teaching summer school, and the school district has put her on administrative duty status. When the School Board meets next month, Lafave likely will be suspended without pay pending the outcome of the case, said school district officials.
On Monday, Temple Terrace police arrested Lafave 16 miles from her Riverview townhouse at a private two-story residence in the River Run community in Temple Terrace. Police will not say whether it is the home of the boy involved in the case, but the Times is nonetheless withholding the identity of the family who lives there.
The criminal affidavit filed upon Lafave's arrest offers no information about her relationship with the 14-year-old leading up to the alleged sexual encounters. For the past two years, Lafave has taught reading at Greco Middle School. It's not clear whether he was a student of hers.
The teen told police that on June 3, in a location police refuse to identify, Lafave performed oral sex on him. The teen also told investigators that he and Lafave had sex in a portable classroom at Greco Middle on June 1, according to the affidavit.
Lafave's parents and her mother-in-law did not return phone calls this week.
Her attorney, Frederick Vollrath, told reporters outside the courthouse Tuesday that his client is "an outstanding member of the community."
"She has no prior record," he said. "She's lived here her whole life. We'll have to see what happens."
Lafave grew up in southern Hillsborough County, one of two daughters of Larry and Joyce Beasley. The 1998 yearbook from her senior year at Bloomingdale High School lists her as a member of the chorus and the Ambassadors, another singing club. She also studied fashion through DECA, a school-sponsored program that sets up students with jobs for credit.
She had a cosmetology degree when she graduated from Bloomingdale High, but she went to the University of South Florida for a bachelor's degree in English.
While she was a student there, her sister Angela Beasley was killed by Joseph F. Piotrowski, who has since been dismissed from the Army and sentenced to 30 years in state prison.
Lafave graduated from USF a year after her sister died and was hired to teach at Greco Middle.
In February 2003, she and Kristian Lafave, not yet married, bought a $93,000 townhouse in Osprey Run in Riverview, according to county records.
They married in Hillsborough County five months later, in a civil ceremony that was the first marriage for both. The pretty, young bride, 22 at the time, wore a white cap-sleeve gown and a traditional veil. The groom wore a black tuxedo with a white tie and vest.
Winter Park wedding photographer Brian Adams said he knows the couple only as clients, and he was hesitant to divulge too much information about the wedding. But he recalled the Lafaves as a nice, happy couple.
The bride and groom were such a stunning pair that Adams features pictures of them on his Web site. They are shown dancing, beaming from the limousine and kissing.
Their first wedding anniversary is July 19.
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or at svansickler@sptimes.com
