Gig Harbor, Wash. ? Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher convicted for having sex with a sixth-grade student, was released from prison Wednesday, and her 21-year-old victim quickly sought to get back together with her.

Vili Fualaau is challenging a court order that bars Letourneau from contacting him as part of her child rape sentence. He says he is an adult and can pick his own friends, especially the mother of his two children.

Letourneau, 42, slipped out of prison quietly after midnight and was met by a crowd that included dozens of media outlets and a group of rowdy teenage boys waving signs that said “I’m 18, Baby!” and “Take Me Home.”

Letourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in suburban Des Moines and an unhappily married mother of four in 1996, when she began having sex with the sixth-grader.

At a 2002 civil trial, Fualaau testified, “We had sex in the gym, we had sex in the girl’s bathroom, and we had sex in her classroom.”

When Letourneau was arrested in 1997, she was already pregnant with Fualaau’s daughter. Though she professed her love for the boy, a judge sentenced her to six months in jail for second-degree child rape and ordered her to stay away from him.

A month after Letourneau was released, she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car. She was sent to prison for 7 1/2 years and gave birth to Fualaau’s second daughter behind bars.

Letourneau’s two daughters with Fualaau are now 6 and 7. They have been raised by Fualaau’s mother and visited Letourneau in prison about twice a month. Her four older children live in Alaska with her ex-husband and visited a few times a year.

The sentencing order has allowed Letourneau to have contact with her children by Fualaau. Letourneau has said she would consider having more children with him.

The King County prosecutor’s office is reviewing Fualaau’s motion to see Letourneau again, spokesman Dan Donohoe said, and had not yet decided whether to agree to it or request a hearing before a judge.

Under terms of her release, Letourneau was required to register as a sex offender, and did so Wednesday afternoon at the King County Courthouse.

Vili Fualaau is shown in this April 3, 2002, file photo in Kent, Wash. Fualaau, who fathered two children with his former sixth-grade teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau, says he wants to reunite with her now that she is out of prison.