Teacher Who Seduced Pupil Freed

Mary Kay LeTourneau, the former grade school teacher whose seduction of a sixth-grade pupil launched a thousand tabloid covers, has been released from prison, a corrections spokeswoman said early Wednesday.

LeTourneau served seven and a half years for child rape at the Washington Corrections Center for Women prison near here.

Now 42, LeTourneau was keeping mum about whether she plans to reunite with her former student, Vili Fualaau, now 21, with whom she has two children.

LeTourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in the Seattle suburb of Des Moines and a married mother of four in 1996 when she began a sexual relationship with the then-12-year-old Fualaau.

What she called true love, state law called a crime.

When LeTourneau was arrested in 1997, she was already pregnant with Fualaau's daughter. A judge sentenced her to six months for second-degree child rape, and ordered her to stay away from Fualaau.

She was remorseful then at her sentencing - promising she'd never do it again - but that pledge quickly turned to dust a month after her release, when she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car.

She was sent to prison for seven and a half years, and gave birth to Fualaau's second daughter behind bars.

The daughters are in the custody of their grandmother - Fualaau's mother.

"I really expect her to make a beeline for Vili Fualaau," says Gregg Olsen, who wrote a book on the two called "If Loving You Is Wrong."

Six years ago, Fualaau told "Inside Edition" that he still had "deep feelings" for LeTourneau.

But his feelings today, as a grown man, are an open question.

LeTourneau meanwhile has a few things to take care of as she tastes freedom for the first time in a long time.

She'll have to register as a sex offender, and she must obey a court order that says she cannot go near Fualaau.

It's binding - unless Fualaau tells the court he would like it withdrawn.

As an adult, he now has the right to do that.