Debra Lafave

In October 2014, the Florida Supreme court ruled in favor of Lafave.

In July 2008, within the terms of her plea deal, Lafave petitioned to convert the remainder of her house arrest to probation, having satisfied other terms such as sex offender therapy and community service. Her petition was granted and her house arrest ended four months early. On October 29, 2009, Lafave was cleared to have unsupervised contact with some children. On September 22, 2011, Lafave moved to end her probation four years early, on account of having completed all other obligations and recently becoming a mother of twin boys fathered by a relationship with a restaurant owner. The relationship didn’t work out, and in 2016 the couple went through a custody dispute, according to court records obtained by PEOPLE. Her petition was granted and her probation ended that day. The teen's family stated that they would appeal the decision. The early termination of probation was reversed by the 2nd District Court of Appeals on August 15, 2012. Lafave asked the Florida Supreme Court to reinstate her release from probation. On January 24, 2013, Lafave was ordered to continue her probation while the Florida Supreme Court waited to hear the case.

Lafave was arrested on December 4, 2007, for violating her probation by speaking with a 17-year-old female restaurant co-worker. The court ruled, however, that the violation was neither willful nor substantial, and it did not revoke her probation.

On December 8, 2005, Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil rejected the plea deal, claiming that any agreement that did not require Lafave to serve some prison time "would undermine the credibility of this court, and the criminal justice system as a whole, and would erode public confidence in our schools." He set a trial date for April 10, 2006. The Marion County state's attorney subsequently dropped the charges. In a statement, the prosecutors cited an assessment by psychologist Martin Lazoritz that found the teen would be so severely traumatized by a potential trial that it would take as long as eight years for him to recover. Stancil had proposed closing the courtroom when the teen testified. However, prosecutors concluded that his privacy would still be endangered if the case went to trial, since it would be nearly impossible to keep witnesses from mentioning his name in open court. They ultimately decided that putting Lafave on trial would not be worth the harm to the teen's well-being.

Lafave had sexual intercourse, including oral sex, with a student on four different occasions. In May 2004, the boy and Lafave went to see his cousin in Ocala. His aunt was alarmed at seeing him in the company of a provocatively-dressed woman, and alerted his mother. Under intense questioning from the boy's mother, he admitted that the woman was Lafave. Officers in Temple Terrace recorded conversations between Lafave and the boy, then arrested her at their next meeting. Two separate sets of charges were filed, because the alleged incidents occurred in both Riverview, in Hillsborough County, and Ocala, in Marion County. A trial date was set after the prosecution and defense could not agree on a plea bargain that involved prison time. Lafave faced a sentence of 5-to-15 years for each of the two counts for which she was accused.

From 1995 to 1996 Lafave dated Nick Carter and graduated from Bloomingdale High School in 1999 and attended the University of South Florida, with a degree in English. After college graduation, she was hired as an English teacher at Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, Florida. In 2003, following her first year of teaching, she married Owen LaFave.

Debra Jean Williams (born August 28, 1980), better known under her former married names of Debra Lafave and Debra Beasley, is an American woman who formerly taught at Angelo L. Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, Florida. In 2005, she pleaded guilty to lewd or lascivious battery against a teenager. The charges stemmed from a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old male student in mid-2004. Lafave's plea bargain included no prison time, opting for three years of house arrest due to safety concerns, and seven years of probation.