Latest Update News About The Cash Teacher, Lisa Lavoie, Former Holyoke Teacher Accused Of Running Off With Student, May Opt For Plea Instead Of Trial: SPRINGFIELD – Lisa M. Lavoie, the former Holyoke school teacher accused of running off last year with a 15-year-old student, is expected to plead guilty to some of the charges she faces.
The case against Lavoie will likely end in late November with Lavoie pleading guilty to some offenses, prosecution and defense lawyers told a judge in Hampden Superior Court last week.
Lavoie, 25, has pleaded innocent to six counts of statutory rape and one of enticement of a child under the age of 16, in a case involving a then-eighth-grade student.
Assistant district attorney Patrick S. Sabbs and defense lawyer David P. Hoose told Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder on Thursday that they expect to have the case ready for a plea hearing on Nov. 23. If the plea does not occur, a trial date of Jan. 20, is set.
The six statutory rape counts include three of aggravated statutory rape, a charge established under a bill known as “Jessica’s Law” that was signed into law a year ago, prosecutors have said. Those charges carry a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.
Lavoie, who worked at Holyoke’s Maurice A. Donahue Elementary School, has been free on $25,000 cash bail; she was also placed under a judge’s order to undergo drug and alcohol screening, electronic and GPS monitoring, a strict curfew and have no contact with the teenager as part of her release. She has since been fired by the Holyoke Public Schools.
Investigators have said Lavoie and the male student became friendly in October 2008. A relationship then developed, and the two began texting and e-mailing before having sex.
She and the boy fled Western Massachusetts in February when they learned their relationship had been found out. They were reported missing on Feb. 16, 2009, and apprehended a week later in a motel room in Morgantown, W. Va.
Prosecutors have said that Lavoie and the teen drove through Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania as authorities pursued them.
The aggravated rape charges were issued because, as a teacher, Lavoie was a so-called mandatory reporter. That is, she held a position that required her to report any suspicion of abuse, thus exacerbating the allegations against her.
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Arslan Ali 