She's using the insanity defense. And it looks like her husband did file for divorce. Sounds like life has gotten pretty rough.
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Teacher will use insanity defense
With it, Debra Lafave will try to fend off charges that she had sex with one of her 14-year-old students.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD, Times Staff Writer
Published December 1, 2004
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Lafave says she's insane
TAMPA - Debra Lafave, the suspended Greco Middle School teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student, will claim she was insane at the time of the alleged encounters.
Lafave's attorney, John Fitzgibbons, announced in court Tuesday that he would file notice of an insanity defense "in the near future."
"Debbie has some profound emotional issues that are not her fault," Fitzgibbons said afterward. Several doctors have examined Lafave in recent months, Fitzgibbons said, and their findings will cast light on what happened in this case.
As expected, a cadre of camera crews turned out Tuesday to capture the 24-year-old Lafave, blond and blue-eyed, as she entered and left the courtroom, flanked by her lawyer and family.
Gone was the smoky eye shadow and hot red lipstick that have characterized her image on national TV and on the Internet.
Instead, Lafave showed up for court Tuesday with muted makeup, a somber black suit and heels, her hair demurely pinned back. A small golden crucifix hung from her neck.
Lafave has pleaded not guilty to four felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery and one count of lewd and lascivious exhibition, each of which carry a maximum 15-year prison term.
The charges stem from a teenage student's claims that he and Lafave had sex five times in early June, encounters that allegedly occurred in her Riverview townhouse, her classroom and the back of her Isuzu during rides through Ocala.
The defense is expected to point to the horrific April 2001 death of Lafave's older sister, Angela Beasley, who was 24 years old and five months pregnant when an intoxicated Army captain, Joseph Piotrowski, plowed his Jeep into her car. Piotrowski is now serving a 30-year prison term for the crime.
During Piotrowski's court-martial in August 2001, Lafave testified about how depressed, angry and ill she had been since her sister's death. "It's hard to concentrate on anything but that," she said.
Her mother, Joyce Beasley, described her as "pretty much a basket case" as a result of her sister's death.
Under the law, the state will be allowed to enlist its own mental health expert to examine Lafave, and the results are admissible in court to rebut defense psychiatrists. However, Lafave retains her right not to testify at her trial.
At the request of both sides, Hillsborough Circuit Judge Wayne Timmerman agreed to delay Lafave's trial, which was scheduled for Dec. 6. The case goes before the judge again on March 22 for a pretrial hearing, with a trial set for April 25.
Legal experts say an insanity claim is a defense of last resort, often relied on when the defense cannot plausibly dispute the alleged facts.
"The essence of an insanity defense is the defendant must in some medium admit the offense," said veteran defense attorney Norman Cannella. "That is the heart of the defense."
But such a defense is notoriously tough to sell to a jury. In November, Fitzgibbons, Lafave's attorney, failed to persuade jurors that another client, Plant City pediatrician George Rada, was insane when he gunned down his wife. Rada was convicted of first-degree murder.
The insanity defense is rarely used in sex cases. In March, Randolph Standifer, a 23-year-old Tampa man, was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 9-month-old girl, despite his lawyers' plea that he was insane when it happened.
In the Lafave case, the defense faces particular trouble, in that she is accused of multiple sex acts occurring over weeks.
"I have trouble conceptualizing how Fitzgibbons intends to use (the insanity defense) without insulting the jury," Cannella said. "I don't think the common person would be able to juxtapose insanity and consensual sex."
Under Florida law, Lafave can be considered insane if she suffered from a mental infirmity at the time of the alleged crime and, as a result, failed to grasp the consequences of her action or its wrongness. According to standard jury instructions, "unrestrained passion or ungovernable temper," even if they eclipse normal judgment, do not equate with insanity.
Apart from criminal troubles, Lafave is in the midst of a divorce from Kristian Lafave, to whom she had been married less than a year when she was arrested in June. Two months later, he asked for a divorce.
The Hillsborough School Board has suspended Lafave without pay until her case is resolved. Recently, she has been struggling to pay off the Visa bill from her honeymoon while working as an office assistant at an Apollo Beach air conditioning company, according to court documents.
Later this week, the State Attorney's Office is expected to release discovery material in the case, including police reports and the transcript of recorded phone calls between Lafave and the 14-year-old student.
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