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Diner Patrons Want Lafave To Come Back To Work

CHRIS COYNER / News Channel 8 Image

Debra Lafave and her mother declined to talk to reporters as they walked through the Orient Road Jail parking lot earlier this week.

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By THOMAS W.  KRAUSE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 7, 2007

Updated: 12/09/2007 07:04 pm

Previous: Chats With Teen Co-Worker Led To Lafave's Arrest

TAMPA - In just one hour Wednesday afternoon, 97 patrons of Danny Boy's Restaurant in Sun City Center signed a petition asking that Debra Lafave return to work.

Lafave was forced to quit the restaurant last month while a probation officer investigated whether she had an inappropriate and private conversation with a minor female employee.

Debra Lafave

Ed Leary, 78, one of the organizers of the petition drive, said the group now is trying to figure out where to send the petition. He guessed it would be forwarded to the Florida Attorney General's Office.

Lafave, 27, was arrested Tuesday and charged with violating conditions of her house arrest by having private and sexual conversations with an underage fellow employee at Danny Boy's.

The former middle school English teacher has completed two of her three years on house arrest. In 2005, she pleaded guilty to charges of lewd and lascivious battery for having sex with a 14-year-old student.

Tuesday arrest was Lafave's first violation. Her lawyer had said days earlier that he planned to ask that her final year of house arrest be commuted to probation because she was doing so well.

Lafave is scheduled to appear before Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett on Jan. 7 to answer the charges.

On Nov. 20, the manager of Danny Boy's got a call from Lafave's probation officer. He told the manager that Lafave no longer would be working there.

Probation records show that Officer Michael Cotignola had been investigating conversations between Lafave and a 17-year-old girl. Reports show that the two talked about "family problems, friends, high school, personal life, boyfriend issues and sexual issues."

"We all had great compassion for her," restaurant patron Leary said of Lafave. "There is no sweeter kinder person that we have ever met."

Scores of restaurant patrons, mostly senior citizens, have joined the "mission" to have Lafave return to work, Leary said. They say she did nothing wrong.

"We feel it is terrible that they are raking her over the coals again," Leary said.

Lafave's attorney, John Fitzgibbons, said he heard about the petition today.

"It's certainly a spontaneous outpouring of support from the citizens of the community who know Debbie," he said. "It confirms the reports I have heard over the past two years of what a wonderful job she has done at the restaurant."

He said he doesn't know if it will get her back her job.

"I don't think it's going to hurt a bit," he said.

Currently, Lafave is working for her mother's barber shop.

Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tkrause@tampatrib.com.

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