Return to Transcripts main page

NANCY GRACE

Debra Lafave Probation Violation Hearing Postponed

Aired December 21, 2007 - 20:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MIKE BROOKS, GUEST HOST: Tonight: She`s too pretty for prison. That`s what Debra Lafave`s attorney tells a judge after she admits sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy student, the Florida teacher escaping hard prison time with a sweetheart plea deal. Lafave walks on straight house arrest and probation, then she`s arrested again, this time for having inappropriate conversations with a minor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-four-year-old Florida teacher Debra Lafave makes headlines when she is arrested, accused of sexual assaulting a 14-year-old boy, that boy a student at Breckel (ph) Middle school, where Lafave teaches English. Days later, Lafave arrested again, facing similar charges in another county for sex crimes on the same boy. Married at the time, Lafave`s husband files for divorce. After confessing to the crime and blaming it on bipolar disorder, Lafave enters a plea deal, three years house arrest and seven years probation. Prosecutors in the second county drop all charges. Then, close to finishing her house arrest, Debra Lafave is arrested yet again for having inappropriate contact with a minor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: Good evening. I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Tonight: Florida school teacher and sex offender Debra Lafave admits to assaulting a young boy student at her own middle school. A plea deal allows her to serve her time on house arrest and even back to the workforce, but Debra Lafave gets in more hot water after she has contact with a minor.

For the very latest, let`s go straight out to Dave Karsh of Newsradio 610 WIOD. Dave, thanks for joining us. What`s the latest in the Debra Lafave case?

DAVID KARSH, NEWSRADIO 610 WIOD: Well, Mike, the blond bombshell in trouble with the law again, and you just can`t believe it. She skated jail time. The judge two years ago said, Look, you won`t go to jail, you`ll be on house arrest, but you cannot have any contact with minors. Seemed simple enough but not simple enough apparently for Miss Lafave.

BROOKS: Now, what happened in court?

KARSH: Well, she was there. She pleaded not guilty to the charge of violating her probation, stemming from charges going back to the restaurant that she`s worked at in Tampa. Now, it`s a teeny-bopper restaurant, a diner-style restaurant frequented by minors. One of the waitresses she befriended was 17 years old, and apparently, the state found out that they were having what could be deemed girl talk -- talking about problems with their family, their friends, boys and sex, which is, of course, a big no-no for a woman in her situation.

BROOKS: You know, I want to go right out to our attorneys, Ray Giudice from Atlanta, defense attorney, and Penny Douglass Furr, defense attorney also in Atlanta, two extremely well-respected defense attorneys. OK, you`ve just heard what Dave Karsh said. You know, is -- are they piling on her, Ray?

RAY GIUDICE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, absolutely, Mike. If you remember, the reason this was such a sweetheart deal is that the district attorney laid (ph) down, dismissed the serious mandatory jail time charges and enabled this deal to happen. What I think you`ve got here is probably a prosecutorial team that is acting out of, you know, sort of a -- they got a bad deal, buyer`s remorse, and they`re looking for any minor technical violations to stick it to her. And I think that`s what you`ve got here.

BROOKS: Penny, she apparently had no problems up until now. I mean, she`s two years into this, you know? Sometimes you say, OK, maybe she should have done jail time in the first place, but now, piling on or not? What do you think?

PENNY DOUGLASS FURR, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Mike, this is absolutely ridiculous. The girl is working in a restaurant. She`s just talking to the girl, making friends with the girl. And they`re just absolutely being outrageous. We have to consider the reasonableness. And I just believe they have to have much bigger crimes to deal with down there than this girl who`s having conversation with another girl, who I understand now has turned 18. So this is basically an adult. And this has nothing to do with the things she was originally charged with.

BROOKS: But Ray, if she -- she should know better. If she gets into conversations about dating and sex -- I mean, she had her own problems that got her there in the first place.

GIUDICE: Look, Mike, I`m not going to disagree that in an absolute technical strict reading of the reading of the probation, this girl, who apparently was 17 years and 10 months, is under 18 and they were having some girl talk. It`s an absolutely minimal technical violation. Now, that being said, let`s put it in front of a judge. Let`s let the judge hear it. And let`s let the judge hear all the great things she`s done for the last two years in compliance.

BROOKS: I want to go back out to Dave Karsh, reporter for Newsradio 610 WIOD, joining us from Miami. Dave, what was she originally arrested for? Kind of take us through how we got where we are today.

KARSH: Well, going back two years ago, she was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior on a minor under the age of 16 for having sex with her 14-year-old student, two charges that she admitted to. So she was in serious hot water then, and the judge allowed her to escape jail time, which caused a lot of outrage down in Florida. A lot of people couldn`t understand, if she was a woman, this was the only reason why she was allowed to escape jail time. If she was a man, would we be seeing something different?

BROOKS: Absolutely. I mean, and the fact -- I think it was the judge who basically said, Well, wait a minute, you know? It was the prosecutor - - prosecution team that basically said, We`re just going to let her walk with nothing at all. Am I correct, Ray Giudice?

GIUDICE: And I think our reporter needs to make sure that the language is appropriate. Her defense team and she did not do anything inappropriate in this plea bargain. It was the state who lay down and let this deal happen. She should have taken it. But she has strictly adhered to this probation, except for this very minor problem here.

BROOKS: But Penny Douglass Furr, defense attorney out of Atlanta, you know, didn`t she also -- didn`t Debra Lafave say, I should be in jail?

FURR: Well, Mike, I totally disagree that if she was a man, it would be different. I have a case right now where...

BROOKS: Oh, absolutely! If it was a male, they would have buried him under the jail!

FURR: That`s -- that`s just not true. I have a case right now...

BROOKS: Oh!

FURR: ... where it was a 23-year-old man, a 15-year-old girl, and guess what? Now it`s six years later, and the judge is ready to take the child from the victim and give it to the accuser (ph).

BROOKS: But Penny, that is few and far between. If we have a male teacher who`s trolling the halls of his school, looking for female -- you know, females to go out with, they`re going to bury him under the -- they`re going to bury him under the court!

FURR: Mike, there`s a difference between a teacher trolling the halls to look for different 14 and 15-year-olds and a teacher that has a relationship with one person. And the case I had, when it was a 23-year- old man and a 15-year-old girl, the judge didn`t have a major problem with that.

BROOKS: Well, see, again, in this particular case, it wasn`t just one person who was involved. She drove around with this young man in the car with one of -- with a relative, if I`m not mistaken, a cousin of his, driving.

Right now, I want to go out to a very special guest joining us from Tampa by phone, Owen Lafave. He`s Debra Lafave`s ex-husband and author of "Gorgeous Disaster." Owen, thank you for being with us again.

OWEN LAFAVE, DEBRA LAFAVE`S EX-HUSBAND: Mike, thanks for having me.

BROOKS: Now, take us back to that time. You know her better than anyone else, anyone here on this panel knows her. When all of that happened, what were you going through?

LAFAVE: You know, Mike, I think it was a little bit of shock, a little bit of just disbelief, but you know, intense pain and intense really, you know, public humiliation. I mean, it was a situation in which, you know, I lost my wife, a woman I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, but obviously, her actions were very public and the entire world knew about it.

BROOKS: Now, when it happened, how did you find out about it?

LAFAVE: I found out -- her mother actually called me at work. She got her one phone call, and of course, she wasn`t going to call her ex- husband. She called her mother, and then subsequently, her mother called me to tell me that she was arrested.

BROOKS: Now, before she was arrested, had there been any behavior whatsoever that she had been exhibiting, maybe spending too much time with any students, talking about one or two or any student in particular too much, in your opinion?

LAFAVE: You know, Mike, it`s funny. There was a very short time before she got arrested where she really -- it was like living with a different person. And I`m talking probably two or three weeks prior to her arrest. I mean, she just -- she started dressing different. She started dressing very provocative, very inappropriate for school, started listening to rap music, started smoking, all of a sudden, didn`t want to have kids. And you know, she did probably spend, you know, some time with her students that I thought was excessive, but you know, again, here she is as a teacher, and you know, in my mind, I thought, you know, it was a good thing for her to, you know, show interest in her students.

BROOKS: Now, were any of these kids ever show up at your house? Did she ever have any of these kids over?

LAFAVE: Well, you know, unfortunately, you know, from this police report, this boy was over at the house, but I was not present at the time.

BROOKS: Now, when it actually occurred, wasn`t it the boy`s cousin who was actually driving them around, in the back of the car -- it was her car -- driving them around from county to county when all this happened?

LAFAVE: Yes, that is accurate, and that`s actually where those charges stem from, from Marion County, which is north of Hillsborough. And you`re correct, it was the boy`s cousin that did drive them around while they had sex in the back.

BROOKS: Now, I want to go out to -- joining us in New York, Leslie Austin, psychotherapist and body language expert. Leslie, you just heard what he said. And based on her case, you know, and what`s going on now, in your opinion, does this woman still have a problem?

LESLIE AUSTIN, PSYCHOTHERAPIST AND BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Well, yes, she has a problem, but honestly, I don`t think jail is the appropriate remedy for it. She was doing really well in her probation. This is a treatment issue. This is somebody who still does not understand appropriate boundaries and appropriate behavior. And if she was to have no contact, maybe she thought she could get away with it, it was OK, it was innocent, but it is a boundary issue. This is a treatment issue. Sex offenders need to have strict boundaries. They don`t get over it very easily.

BROOKS: Well, what do you think the -- she do now to understand that she has to have boundaries? Is jail time going to do something to maybe straighten her out now and get her head right?

AUSTIN: Honestly, I think jail time will be of no use whatsoever in this case. She does need really serious psychological treatment on a consistent level, and she`s really got to commit to understand that the way she sees the world is not appropriate. That`s hard for someone to do with her kind of personality structure, but that`s what`s going to get her through the rest of her life.

I think she could do it if she really committed to it because she did well on the rest of the probation. But she went back to the same old pattern. Maybe an innocent problem, a small thing, but it`s still a boundary violation and it was inappropriate, and that`s the lesson that she needs to learn here.

BROOKS: But she blamed her initial charge on her initial actions on bipolar disorder.

AUSTIN: No, I`m sorry, there are so many bipolar people who don`t commit sex offenses and don`t get involved with minors. Bipolar disorder is a very serious issue. You do have aberrant behavior. It`s treatable. You can work with it. But to me, that`s not an excuse, it`s a cause. It`s a context for this behavior, which still has to be addressed.

BROOKS: I want to go back out to Dave Karsh, joining us from Miami. He`s a reporter with Newsradio 610 WIOD. Dave, how much time was she actually facing on the original charges?

KARSH: Well, that`s a great question. And obviously, crimes of this nature carry serious jail time. You`re looking at dozens and dozens of years behind prison. She knew she had a long time ahead of her, and that`s why she did anything she could to avoid that, which got her to where she is today.

BROOKS: So I think going back -- I think Ellie was tell me, early on, that it was I think 60 years that she was originally facing on the original charges. And Ray Giudice and Penny Douglass Furr, defense attorneys, now with this violation of probation, she faces up to 30 years. Ray?

GIUDICE: Well, that`s right. Once you`re sentenced and you violate - - if you`re found to be in violation of your probation, you have to complete, technically, the rest of your sentence, and that can be done in custody in jail time. Or you can be placed back on probation with new conditions of probation.

BROOKS: Now, Penny Douglass Furr, she had been working here for quite some time. All of a sudden, the probation officers go out there and they find that she`s having these inappropriate conversations, what they`re talking about. You know, should they have been following up on her closer, you know, down the road for two years?

FURR: It depends if they`re on notice. If they`re on notice that something inappropriate has occurred, then they would follow up. If not, there`s no way they can follow everybody until they have some type of notice.

But I would like to ask the therapist if she believes that any person who does have a sexual relationship with an underaged person is a sex offender. That`s what I would like to ask her.

BROOKS: And I want to point out that this 17-year-old girl turns 18 in January. More on the Debra Lafave case next.

But first, on a much lighter note, check out the latest message from Nancy about the twins. And coming soon, video of Nancy and the twins will make its debut on the baby blog. That`s all at CNN.com/nancygrace. And exciting news. Nancy`s back on Headline News January 7, 8:00 PM Eastern. So mark it down on your calendars and be here with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBRA LAFAVE, CONVICTED OF HAVING SEX WITH 14-YEAR-OLD STUDENT: The past two years have been hard on all parties involved. I pray with all my heart that the young man and his family will be able to move on with their lives. Again, I offer my deepest apology.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Well, Debra Lafave, she just can`t keep out of trouble, it seems. She was on -- she`s on two years probation, working at Danny Boy`s restaurant and accused of having inappropriate conversations with a minor working at the restaurant, where she`s not supposed to have any contact with minors whatsoever.

I want to go right out to David Karsh. He`s a reporter with Newsradio 610 WIOD. David, there was a court hearing on Tuesday. Did she show up?

KARSH: She was there with her attorney to file their not guilty plea. The judge would have heard the case, but apparently, one of the key witnesses was not able to attend, so the judge moved everything to January 10.

BROOKS: Now, who`s this witness who didn`t show up today?

KARSH: Well, ostensibly, it`s an employee at the restaurant. It never really came out who exactly the judge was waiting for, but there are many young people who work at the restaurant Danny Boy`s, and the thinking is it was one of those who may have seen or heard one of those conversations that went on between the two.

BROOKS: Now, she was talking to a 17-year-old minor who turns 18 in January. Are there other minors that she was in contact with other minors on a daily basis?

KARSH: Look, this is a restaurant that`s frequented by young people. They come in and out. If she`s a waitress, of course, she speaks with them. Now, that`s allowed. She took this job with the permission of the state, and the extent of her conversation was to take their order and bring it to them. But her conversation allegedly that went on between these two went way beyond that.

BROOKS: Interesting. What are the allegations of these conversations?

KARSH: Well, the allegations are that she engaged in conversations that were, you know, girl talk, things you`d expect to hear in a girls` bathroom -- boyfriend, upset at their parents and sex, which between two teens, nobody`s going to argue with that. But when you have somebody who`s a sex offender, who`s told by a judge, You`re not going to jail, but you cannot speak to a minor -- once that goes on, it`s taken very, very seriously down here.

BROOKS: I want to go back out to our defense attorneys joining us from Atlanta, Ray Giudice and Penny Douglass Furr. Ray, this hearing that happened on Tuesday is continued now until January. What`s expected to happen at this hearing?

GIUDICE: Well, that gives the defense counsel plenty of time to round up and subpoena lots of witnesses who are going to show how well Lafave did on probation, how strict her compliance was. The one problem, the one fly in this ointment might be, when the then 17-year-old girl testifies, is how racy, how explicit is that sex talk? Because quite frankly, I think the rest of that is nonsense.

BROOKS: Well, Penny, you know, I -- still, she knows the boundaries. She crossed the line again. So why shouldn`t she go back to jail and do some time?

FURR: Well, Mike, there`s a huge difference between girl talk between her and a 17-year-old and her having sex with a 14-year-old boy. I think these are way apart. I haven`t heard anything alleging that she`s having some type of homosexual relationships with girls. So I can`t imagine she was crossing the line saying anything sexual to the girl. I think it was just typical girl talk that two girls would have in a restaurant, who are young adults, say between the ages of 16 to 25.

BROOKS: I want to go back out, joining us from New York, Leslie Austin, psychotherapist and body language expert. Leslie, we know that the rate of recidivism with male sex offenders is just unbelievable, horrible. They don`t get rehabilitated, basically. What about female sex offenders?

AUSTIN: It`s the same with female sex offenders. There are fewer female sex offenders than there are male, but it`s a very difficult issue to treat. And by the way, I don`t think that everyone who has a sexual relationship with a minor is necessarily absolutely a sex offender. There are lots of shades of gray. It`s a very difficult subject. But in this case, an authority figure, a teacher, with a 14-year-old and she`s 23, it is a sexual offense and it does need treatment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To place an attractive young woman in that kind of hell hole is like putting a piece of raw meat in with the lions. I`m not sure that Debby would be able to survive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Well, she`s back in court in January. And what will be the fate of Debra Lafave? Will she have to serve 30 years after almost three years of probation? She was almost done with what she had to do. She was doing well, but it looks like she had to have a conversation with a 17-year-old minor, this time a female.

I want to go right out to a very special guest from Tampa joining us by phone. That`s Owen Lafave, Debra Lafave`s ex-husband and author of "Gorgeous Disaster." Owen, what do you think? I mean, you were with her for years. Do you think that this was just innocent girl talk? What do you think about this?

LAFAVE: Well, Mike, one of the things that I`d like to point out is she previously did have an intimate relationship with a girl. So at the forefront, you want to say it`s probably just girl talk, it`s innocent, but we don`t know the details of the relationship. What we do know is that the probation officer had investigated this for over two months before they gave the order to arrest her. So we really don`t know. It`s possible, you know, she could have been having intimate relationships with this girl.

BROOKS: Now, you say -- you`re saying that she had an intimate relationship with a woman. Was this while you were married?

LAFAVE: No. No. This was actually before, you know, we had even started dating.

BROOKS: Very interesting. But I mean, how did you find out about that? Did she just come out and tell you about it?

LAFAVE: You know, we went to high school together for a short period of time. I had heard some rumors. And of course, when we started dating, that was one of the things I asked. And you know, she told me at the time that it was a phase. You know, that being said, you know, she did have a relationship with a 14-year-old girl. So I`m not sure you can believe what she says. Or 14-year-old boy.

BROOKS: Very interesting. I want to go back out to Miami, Dave Karsh, reporter for Newsradio 610, WIOD. Dave, what`s she doing now?

KARSH: Well, right now, she`s awaiting trial. You know, she may have learned her fate on Tuesday, but because that witness wasn`t able to show up, the judge moved everything to January. She was working at this restaurant. The state ordered her to leave that restaurant, and now she`s working at her mother`s hair salon, also in Tampa.

BROOKS: Now, is there a sign up on the door that says, Minors, if you`re under 17, don`t come in?

KARSH: Well, there should be. And you wonder, why wasn`t she working at her mom`s salon in the first place? She may have avoided this whole incident.

BROOKS: I want to go back out to our attorneys, Ray Giudice and Penny Douglass Furr, joining us from Atlanta. Quickly, Ray, what`s your advice? You`re her attorney. What do you tell her?

GIUDICE: Well, I tell her, Let`s get al our witnesses in, take the witness, stand. Let`s portray this as exactly what I believe it is, to be an innocent conversation among two girls.

BROOKS: Penny, what do you say?

FURR: I would get other witnesses in from the restaurant who can say, We talk to her every day, we`ve never had any inappropriate contact or contact conversation about sex, et cetera.

BROOKS: She walks away with a slap on the wrist even after admitting she sexual assaulted a 14-year-old boy student. But Florida teacher Deb Lafave just can`t stay out of trouble. While her attorney works for her early release off house arrest, Lafave ends up back behind bars.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE VELEZ MITCHELL, HEADLINE NEWS GUEST ANCHOR: Debra Lafave is back in the headlines, that gorgeous blond bombshell teacher who admitted she had sex with a 14-year-old boy but still managed to avoid jail, wrangled a plea deal a couple years back that left her with no jail time and house arrest. Now, she was allowed to go to a job, but she had to promise not to have any contact with anybody under 18. Now the shocking news that Debra allegedly made contact with a 17-year-old female co-worker at the restaurant where she worked, violating the terms of her plea deal.

She was arrested today and has already been released on her own recognizance. For more on all of this, let`s go straight out to investigative reporter Eben Brown. Eben, what is the very latest?

EBEN BROWN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Good evening, Jane. Debra Beasley (ph), as she`s now being called -- that`s her maiden name -- was rearrested in Tampa today, and this was because she had conversations with a co-worker at a restaurant where she was working. This co-worker just happened to be 17 years old. But they discussed things that, well, co- workers and possibly friends would discuss, family issues, boyfriend issues. But because of her plea deal, she`s not allowed to talk about any of this type of stuff with a minor, especially in an unsupervised setting. And that`s what caused her to get cited for a probation violation.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So she was released. We have video of her walking out of jail with her mom. What happens next, a hearing?

BROWN: Well, next she`ll go in front of a judge and the judge will have to decide whether or not she`ll go to jail, after all.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, we are so delighted to have with us tonight Owen Lafave. He is Debra Lafave`s ex-husband. He is author of a fabulous book, which I`ve read, "Gorgeous Disaster," about his disastrous marriage to this gorgeous woman. You have been hearing all the information as it comes in, Owen. Is this innocent girl talk, as Debra Lafave`s attorney insists, that this was innocent, this was just a casual conversation; she`s talking to a co-worker, just who happens to be 17, or do you think there`s something more to it because they talked about, quote, unquote, "sexual issues"?

OWEN LAFAVE, DEBRA LAFAVE`S EX-HUSBAND: Well, I think, at this point, we have no idea what those conversations actually consisted of. What we do know is she`s a 27-year-old. She befriended a 17-year-old and definitely had conversations that were inappropriate. We`re talking about boyfriends. We`re talking about sex. And after all, her probation, her house arrest, prohibited her from having these types of conversations, as well as any type of engagement with minors. And so what -- she knew what she was doing was wrong, is the bottom line here.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Owen, essentially, the lawyer`s saying this was girl talk, that it meant nothing because this is a female. However, in your book, "Gorgeous Disaster," you talk about a same-sex relationship that she had allegedly in high school. Tell us about that.

LAFAVE: That`s accurate, and that`s something that`s been substantiated. And actually, this female, in particular, has given public interviews. She had a relationship with a female. So the fact that this girl is female shouldn`t make a difference. She`s a minor.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s bring in the attorneys right off the bat, Susan Moss, family law attorney, as well as a child advocate, and, of course, Eleanor Dixon, prosecutor, and Ray Giudice, defense attorney out of Atlanta.

Guys, take it away. Start with you, Susan. Should she go to jail now? She escaped jail the first time around, got a plea deal after her lawyer argued she was too pretty for prison.

SUSAN MOSS, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: She absolutely must go to jail. There was an order she`s to have absolutely no contact with minors, yet she works in a restaurant called Danny`s Boy. It was only a matter of time. And now she`s done it. Her lawyers say she was good for two years. Well, two out of three may not be bad, but in this case, it`s going to lead to jail.

You must comply with the exact letter of the law when it comes to probation. If you make even a small violation, it`s like being a little pregnant. You`re going to jail.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, but Ray Giudice, how does she work without talking to this other waitress? I mean --

RAY GIUDICE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, that`s right. A condition of probation on any sentence is that you have employment, pay her restitution, her fines. She was in total compliance with her probation for the last two years. She`s out doing a job. This is incidental conversation. What if a 17-year-old customer came into the business or someone came in to ask for directions; how do I get to the hospital? That`s going to be contact.

A good judge is going to look at this in light of her compliance with over two years of probation, and I believe this is going to just get her attention, fine tune the rest of the sentence, and put her back out. You notice that she was not restrained without a bond. She walked right back out today.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Eleanor Dixon, the problem is, if they do send her back, let`s say they sort of renege the plea deal that she got a couple of years ago and they say, now you got to go back to prison, it could be for 30 years, because she basically got a plea deal on two counts that could land her 15 years each. Do you think it`s fair to throw her back in jail for 30 years for talking to a co-worker at a restaurant?

ELEANOR DIXON, PROSECUTOR: Well, I think we need to look at this. It`s not incidental contact, like Ray Giudice seems to claim. This is deliberate. It`s predatory behavior. And I wonder how the public would feel if this was a male defendant and a female victim. I think they would feel a lot differently. I think we need to treat predators the same way. And yes, I think she deserves to go to jail. She had a "Get out of jail free" card. She knew the conditions of her probation and she violated them very willingly.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s go to the horse`s mouth, so to speak, Dennis Cutini. He is the owner and manager of Danny Boy`s restaurant, where Debra Lafave worked for the last two years, although she`s recently left as a result of all this, and now works at her mother`s beauty salon.

Dennis, thank you so much for joining us. Tell us the Debra Lafave that you knew working at your restaurant.

DENNIS CUTINI, OWNER, DANNY BOY`S RESTAURANT: Well, Debby was a model employee for us. She worked here for two years. She`s befriended all the employees. They love her. She takes care of all our customers. I mean, we even had customers tonight, because of the incident, come in and even speak with the local channel news casters that were here and said how they miss her, that she`s no longer here to take care of them.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So do you think they`re criminalizing basically harmless conversations that she had with this other co-worker, or do you think she might have done something a little nefarious?

CUTINI: No, I think it`s all a misunderstanding. Again, when you have fellow co-workers and you might be sitting around a table chatting. You know, we have a lot of employees here, and they`ll sit in front and take care and do their side duties, and a lot of conversations are struck up at that time. But I`ve never witnessed any inappropriate behavior by Debby.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And was she devastated when this happened? And how did it happen? They came in and they basically started interviewing people randomly?

CUTINI: Well, Debby was not here at the time, because she`s -- she hasn`t been employed here in three weeks.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, I want to go back to Eleanor Dixon, prosecutor. You`re hearing now this other version of the story, the man who was there, the owner of the restaurant, watching Debra Lafave work, saying she was a wonderful employee. Have you changed your mind about her going back to prison?

DIXON: No, I haven`t changed my mind about that because what we`re talking about are these conversations, the continual contact that she had with this 17-year-old girl. And again, the conditions of her probation are very clear. There`s -- you know, I`ve read them. I think you have, too. And they say no contact with anyone under the age of 18. No contact means no contact.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, the phone lines are lighting up, but I want to go back to Owen Lafave, Debra`s ex-husband, just to put this all in context. Take us back to the original crime, having sex with a 14-year-old boy, because I remember it distinctly, Owen, that she had and admitted to having sex numerous times. And the one that really got me was in the back of an SUV, she was having sex with a 14-year-old boy while his 15-year-old cousin was driving them around.

LAFAVE: That`s absolutely right. And actually, this feels like 2004 all over again. I mean, I`m surprised at the attention it got back then. I`m still surprised that this is a story today. But regardless, I think it was just, you know, something that people just couldn`t fathom. I mean, she had sex in our town home. She had sex in the classroom, as well as in the back of her SUV while the cousin drove them around. It`s still something to this very day that`s very vivid in my mind.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And that precisely is why it made national news for so long, and of course, the fact --

LAFAVE: That`s exactly right.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: -- that she`s very, very attractive.

Alexa in Washington, your question, ma`am?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Jane. I think once a child predator, always a child predator. And my question is, I`d like to know why was Debra hired at a restaurant where younger employees are usually employed there?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wow, good question. Dennis Cutini, owner/manager of Danny Boy`s restaurant, where she worked, did the authorities come in and say -- did they do a test before they allowed her to work there?

CUTINI: No, none whatsoever. We never were given any guidelines that she couldn`t work here if a minor was working here.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: But how is she supposed to function if she can`t talk to minors, when, as somebody mentioned, there could be a minor who walks in and wants a soda?

CUTINI: Well, that`s correct. If we were notified that prior to her employment, or when she was hired, that she could not work with or associate with minors, then Debby probably would not have been hired at that time. But we did not get those guidelines. We knew that she wasn`t able to serve or take care of customers that were -- had minors. And we -- you know, the girls would always make sure that she didn`t wait on that table. They would fill in and take that table for her.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So, Susan Moss, family law attorney, did the authorities drop the ball by not really outlining the boundaries to the point where she knew where she was going into dangerous territory?

MOSS: Absolutely not. It was Debra Lafave`s responsibility to make sure she lives up to these probation guidelines. She knew what they were. She`s the one who should have said to her boss, I can have no contact with any minors. And you know what? This was not the right job for her.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I may agree with you there. Lauren Howard, psychotherapist, this young woman, even though she seems very attractive and very lucky, in the sense that every guy probably fantasizes about being with her, has had a rough life. She diagnoses herself as being bipolar. She`s also said publicly that she was raped by an older student when she was 13 years old. And in 2001, her pregnant sister was tragically killed in a car accident, which apparently devastated her.

Do we need to take all this into consideration?

LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: No, because we`re not her mental health professionals.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you are.

HOWARD: Well, I`m not. And you know -- I`m not. And so I would need --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You`re a psychotherapist.

HOWARD: Yes, but I would need to sit down with her before I could speak to that. I have to say this looks like a witch hunt to me. It really, really does. If all of a sudden, the authorities are so concerned about her having girl talk with a 17-year-old co-worker, why weren`t they there, making sure she didn`t get in her way before she took this job?

Is the purpose of a punishment to try to rehabilitate a person or is it to try to catch them? Do we take a heroin addict and have him process poppy plants? I mean, if they really felt that she should not be talking with co-workers and they were going to -- I mean, looking -- you know, this is like the Scarlet Letter. This girl`s not getting a chance. She spent two years under house arrest. You hear it from her boss, behaving beautifully.

Yes, we can look at her history of trauma, say all of these things influenced her. She`s had a tough time. Are we trying to give her a leg up here and fix her, or are we trying to make it worse and catch her?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Susan Moss, Lauren Howard is making some really good points.

MOSS: She is. But she got away with not going to jail by the hair on her chinny, chin, chin. And in exchange for that, she had very strict rules and guidelines that she was supposed to live by. She failed to live by and now she`s going to go and pay the piper for her original crime.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

BROOKS: A sweetheart plea deal allows Florida teacher Debra Lafave to walk with no prison time, three years house arrest and seven years probation with numerous conditions, conditions that include not having contact with minors. But that`s just what Debra Lafave does after working as a waitress at a local restaurant called "Danny Boy`s."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would characterize this simply as girl talk, or guy talk, if you will, among fellow employees that all of us do every day, we hope, in the workplace. This is it. There`s no more, there`s no less. I`ve spoken to her probation officer. I`ve spoken to her counselor. And this is it. There`s no allegations of anything more than this. Nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: She was the teacher her attorney -- just heard him right there -- called her too pretty for prison a while back, a woman who had sex with a 14-year-old boy not once but numerous times. She got a plea deal. Now she`s in trouble again.

Mike Brooks, former D.C. police detective, I want to read to you what that attorney, John Fitzgibbons, said a couple of years ago that created such an uproar. "To place Debby in a Florida state women`s penitentiary, to place an attractive young woman in that kind of hellhole is like putting a piece of raw meat in with the lions."

It absolutely created an uproar because the obvious implication is that attractive people shouldn`t go to jail or prison, only people who are not attractive.

BROOKS: I tell you what, anybody reads this police report and the behavior of her with that 14-year-old boy -- she should have been locked up to begin with. It`s a total double standard. And right now, is she going to get another double standard? Is she going to get another chance? Probably so.

But you know, I`m telling you, what they need to do now, the probation officer needs to go back and find out what she`s been up to for two years. I place a little bit of blame on the probation officer for not keeping up with what she has been doing. So now they need to backtrack, go back, find out, has she had any other contact, you know, non-work-related issues like she had with this girl -- did she have this with any other young man or any other young girls over the last two years?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, you raise a good point. Is this the tip of the iceberg? Fascinating question.

Andrea from Florida, your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I would like to know why she didn`t get prison time, like Mary Kay Letourneau did.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, that`s what we`re all arguing. And let`s bring the lawyers back in. Eleanor Dixon, prosecutor, she managed to get a plea deal. She was originally charged in two counties, the second county, where she drove around in the SUV while the cousin drove, and the first county. And she was facing four serious counts that could have landed her 60 years, and she ended up with this house arrest deal. How does that happen?

DIXON: It happens because, probably, she`s got a good attorney, because she should have gone to jail in the very beginning. Also, it`s the responsibility of the judge to sentence someone. So for whatever reason the judge gave her a break with some very strict probation requirements. But clearly, she can`t keep those, either.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ray Giudice, part of it was that --

(CROSSTALK)

GIUDICE: Eleanor`s memory is not 100 percent. I love you Eleanor, but the district attorney in this case folded on the serious mandatory jail time charges. They may have had a good reason about not wanting --

DIXON: The reason is --

GIUDICE: -- to put the victim through...

DIXON: Yes. Exactly.

GIUDICE: But in the end -- but in the end of the day, that was the district attorney`s position, not the defense lawyer`s problem. The defense lawyer did his job, and the judge had to go along because the serious charges were removed by the district attorney.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There may be no resolution. This may become what they call a cold case. As far as Kathleen Savio is, it already was a closed case. They reopened it and if they don`t come to any other conclusion, then it just continues as a closed case. As far as Stacy goes, we hope she shows herself alive at some point in time, if not, we`ll continue searching.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A daring break out, "Shawshank Redemption" style from a Union County jail. (INAUDIBLE) digging their way through their cells using wire and a metal knob.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police in West Virginia are searching for a Marshall University journalism student who`s been missing now since last week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detectives and state troopers spent the morning combing the 400 block of Eight Avenue. That`s where the 21 year old was last seen. Detectives searched alleys and abandoned homes for any clues. Police say time is of the essence with a missing person`s case. Leah`s step father says the family is holding on to hope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s all I`ve got. That`s all I got, hope and prayers. What else can you do?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A desperate search in the steep hills of northern California has paid off. A man and his three children lost for three days in the snow with temperatures below freezing; they were found alive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m so happy to see that they`re well. I can`t wait until I can sit down with them and see exactly what happened. But they`re survivors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two and a half days out there, I mean, they`re walking and talking, so thank you, lord.

BROOKS: Tonight, let`s stop to remember Army Sergeant Jason Lantieri, just 25, from Killinworth, Connecticut. Graduating with a business degree from Western New England college, he loved baseball, basketball, soccer and adventures. He also loved traveling, especially around Europe. His favorite bands, the Red Hot Chile Peppers and the Dave Matthews Band. A man of integrity, always wearing a smile. He leaves behind grieving parents, Kathleen and John, sisters Sarah, Rachel and Amy, and brother David.

Jason Lantieri, an American hero.

Thank you to all our guests and for you at home for being with us. Remember to check out Nancy`s Baby Blog. You`ll find the latest messages from Nancy, photos of the twins and coming soon, video of the twins. That`s at CNN.com/NancyGrace. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. sharp Eastern. Until then, stay safe.

END