Teacher to wed ex-student she was convicted of raping

Former US schoolteacher Mary Kay LeTourneau was set to marry the ex-pupil she was jailed for raping when he was just 12-years-old, media reports said.

LeTourneau, 43, was set to tie the knot with 22-year-old Vili Fualaau at a secret ceremony at a winery near the north-western US city of Seattle, celebrity television show Entertainment Tonight reported.

The one-time school teacher was released from jail last August after serving 7.5 years in jail for having sex with Fualaau, starting when he was a 12-year-old schoolboy in her class.

"There are tragic things that happen in everyone's life and this certainly was a tragedy," Entertainment Tonight quoted LeTourneau as saying just hours before the ceremony to be held in front of 200 guests.

"Those hard times pass and we had to both maintain a lot of strength ... we're here and we're hopeful," said the mother of six, who had four children by the man to whom she was married when she began her affair with Fualaau 10 years ago.

LeTourneau and Fualaau's two daughters, now aged seven and eight, will act as ring bearers at the wedding ceremony, according to Entertainment Tonight.

LeTourneau said that the ceremony would be as much about the guests as it was would be about the less-then traditional uncouple.

"It's our day but it's for us to celebrate with them ... it'll represent us but I'm thinking of them, what will make them feel what we're feeling," she told Entertainment Tonight.

The ceremony will be held under strict security, with guests having to leave cameras at the door and pass through metal detectors.

The two began their affair when LeTourneau, a 34-year-old, unhappily-married married mother, soon became the fodder for news headlines around the world when she was arrested in 1997.

In May 1997, LeTourneau gave birth to a daughter, three months before she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

After six months, she was released on parole on condition that she receive treatment and not see her underage lover.

In February 1998, police caught the couple having sex in a van and LeTourneau was sent back to serve out her entire sentence. She gave birth in prison to Fualaau's second daughter in October 1998.

Their children were put in the care of Fualaau's mother while she was serving her sentence near Seattle. The couple reunited soon after her release from prison.

-AFP