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Arrest warrant issued for Tampa teacher

Woman charged with sex with teen student





Published June 26. 2004 7:30AM



BY AUSTIN L. MILLER

STAFF WRITER





OCALA - Marion County Sheriff's detectives have obtained an arrest warrant for a 23-year-old Tampa-area middle school teacher on charges of having sex with a 14-year-old boy, also from the Tampa area, in Marion County earlier this month.



Debra Beasley Lafave, of Temple Terrace, was charged Monday by Temple Terrace officers on two counts of lewd and lascivious battery. They said Lafave performed sex acts with the teenager while in Tampa. Lafave, who is married, was released on a $5,000 cash bond the following day, Hillsborough County Jail officials said.



When arrested, she refused to give a statement.



On Wednesday, Marion County deputies, too, sought an arrest warrant for the Greco Middle School teacher. Sheriff's officials said Lafave's attorney told them Friday that she will be in Marion County Monday.



A week after the last day of school, Lafave and the 14-year-old boy left Temple Terrace and drove to Ocala to visit the boy's 15-year-old cousin. The trio then drove back to Tampa Bay, because the 14-year-old had a basketball game at a recreation center.



The Sheriff's Office report gives the following account, based on what the boys told investigators:



Before going to the game, Lafave took both teens to her apartment. While the cousin watched a pay-per-view movie, Lafave and the 14-year-old went upstairs to her bedroom, where she performed oral sex.



She then took him to the basketball game.



On the way back to Ocala, Lafave made the 15-year-old drive while she again performed oral sex on his cousin. The Tampa teen spent several days with his cousin.



Back in Tampa, Lafave would take the 14-year-old to his basketball games and had sex with him on June 14 inside a portable at school.



On June 15, Lafave and the boy again went to Ocala and picked up his cousin. The 14-year-old boy told detectives that his cousin drove while he had sex with Lafave in the back of her sport utility vehicle. She dropped the boy's cousin at his home, and she and the 14-year-old boy then went back to Temple Terrace.



Two days later, Lafave again picked up the 14-year-old boy and went to Ocala. While here, they again had sex in the back seat of her vehicle, the reports state. Neighbors in Ocala were getting suspicious of their activities and told the 15-year-old's mother what they saw.



The 15-year-old's mother then called the other boy's mother, who confronted her son. He told her of the sexual escapade, and she contacted Temple Terrace police.



Sheriff's detectives said Lafave told her teenage lover that she was having "sexual inadequacy problems with her husband" and "was turned on by the fact that having sexual relations with him was not allowed."

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