Sex. Murder. Mystery(195)
Karen O'Leary certainly had plenty to consider, but one thing troubled her more and more, something that hadn't been apparent until Bob Huff showed up waving papers in front of KIRO. She knew Bob Huff as Mary Kay Letourneau's attorney along with David Gehrke. Every time she had seen David Gehrke in court, Bob Huff had been there, too. But she was unaware he had anything to do with Vili Fualaau.
So strange.
“It seems like an amazing conflict of interest that you would represent both the rapist and the rape victim,” she told a friend. “But Bob Huff's doing that. It seems shocking to me.”
Bob Huff didn't completely disagree. He thought the situation was curious, too. The lines were blurred in the Letourneau Triangle. The rapist's chief supporter appeared to be the victim's mother. In addition, he later suggested that the prosecutor's office just wanted the whole thing to go away, and by doing battle over Mary Kay and Vili's shared representation, it would only focus more attention on their story—fallout that would only serve the strange alliance's goal—more ballyhoo.
“I was keenly aware that you can't be a representative of people with a conflict of interest,” Bob Huff said later. “But that unusual thing here is that even though they were rapist and victim, they had the same commercial interests. Vili wanted to make money and Mary wanted to get her story out.”
As she faced the first lawsuit in her career, Karen O'Leary found herself in an odd position. She was a reporter covering a case in which an offshoot of it was a lawsuit against her. Over the next few months, she would see what it felt like to be called a liar, manipulator, and a fraud. A dentist from Mukilteo, Washington, sent a note: “Did you get a thrill questioning this young man about his sexual adventure?”
The TV reporter would also see how a boy and his story was twisted and turned for what his lawyers appeared to want more than they wanted justice.
Karen O'Leary deduced two reasons for the lawsuit. One had to do with the upcoming sentencing hearing, the other had to do with money. With sentencing coming up, David Gehrke and Bob Huff were promoting the position that Mary Kay Letourneau was a victim of her own mental imbalance. She was an upstanding teacher who made a terrible mistake. She needed mercy, not condemnation. Treatment, not prison.
The KIRO interview showed a side of the defendant that didn't mesh with that strategy. Vili said the pregnancy had been planned. Mary Kay Letourneau was going to marry him. It was a deliberate and calculated relationship. The lawsuit was a muzzle on the media.
“They didn't want that out,” Karen said later. “They didn't want anyone else to get to Vili. They knew Vili would talk.”
At least to Karen, the second effect of the lawsuit proved to be the most enduring. Bob Huff and David Gehrke were sitting on a story that could mean money. Movies, books, television interviews. Bob Huff, who had that curious role as an associate of David's in the beginning of the case, now had a real job.
“He wanted to make sure no other reporter tried to approach Vili. He threatened everybody else. Nobody else better go to that boy! Nobody else should interview him!” Karen told a friend of Bob Huff's purported tactics.
Karen saw the Today appearance as a promotional effort for the marketing of the “forbidden love” story and her “free” interview in the park had thrown a wrench into the plan.
“They allowed just a little bit of Vili's story out there as a teaser, letting publications like the Globe, Inside Edition, people who pay, know, 'Hey, he'll talk.' Then the negotiations were supposed to start,” Karen said later.
The KIRO interview undermined everything. Vili Fualaau was giving the information away for nothing. That wouldn't do. Not for him. For Audrey. Or for the lawyers. Most importantly, some observers felt, for the lawyers.
Bob Huff flatly denied that the family wanted to sell out. He made the point perfectly clear during an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “This is their lives, and they're not going to cheapen it.”
The KIRO lawsuit wasn't the only pending legal matter. No one knew it at the time, but Bob Huff had contacted the Highline School District the week before Vili went on TV. A notice of claim alleging the district had been negligent in the hiring, supervision, and retention of Mary Kay Letourneau had been sent to district offices in Burien. The notice of claim merely rings a warning bell. The statute of limitations for any negligence runs for three years after the minor's eighteenth birthday. The district responded a day after they received Bob Huff's letter. Their investigation showed that the district did not have any knowledge of Mary Letourneau's improper relationship with her student, and therefore had not failed to act in the best interests of the boy.