US teacher gets 5 years for raping son’s friend

Lemery drew the maximum sentence, which does not allow for early release or parole, said Snohomish County prosecutor Lisa Paul after sentencing. ‘‘The judge mentioned that people look up to teachers and have a responsibility to students to be a good role model,’’ Paul said.

Lemery, a second-grade teacher, conceded using bad judgment in ‘‘acting like a teenager’’ around her son’s friends, but denied any sexual contact. Lemery was acquitted on another charge in 2000 of molesting a 14-year-old boy who said she drove him home from a grocery store, where he was drunk and high on drugs, and then fondled him.

Several of her son’s friends frequently attended parties and spent the night at the Lemery house, where she once handed out herbal ‘‘energy pills’’ according to testimony at the two-week trial. The sentence comes two months after jurors denied damages sought by 18-year-old Vili Fualaau, who claimed police and school officials in another Seattle suburb failed to shield him from former teacher Mary Kay Letourneau. Now serving a seven-year jail term, Letourneau began having sex with Fualaau when he was 12 and later bore two of his children.