FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The teenager who says he slept with his study hall teacher may be forced to take the witness stand again at Beth Friedman's statutory rape trial.

Friedman's lawyer, David Bogenschutz, opened the sixth day of the trial Tuesday by revealing that he had received new information that the alleged victim, Donald Vaden, had been charged with grand theft auto. Bogenschutz complained that he had a right to have the information when he was cross-examining Vaden last week.

Using the alias "Donald Briscoe," Vaden allegedly admitted to Hollywood, Fla., police in December 1999 that he stole a truck, and the case was referred to juvenile court. The defense obtained police records after being tipped off about the arrest by an inmate at the Broward County Jail over the weekend. According to Bogenschutz, Vaden was placed on juvenile probation.

Donald Vaden was allegedly charged with grand theft auto

Bogenschutz argued that he has a right to additional discovery and may even want to call Vaden back to the stand for more cross-examination. As a practical matter, that would give Bogenschutz another chance to try to show the jury that Vaden, now 19, is a liar who has been in and out of trouble with the law.

Vaden testified that he had oral sex and intercourse with Friedman beginning in 1997, when he was 15 years old and she was 38. The defense denies those allegations and claims Vaden made it up to impress his friends and then refused to recant, perhaps out of embarrassment, when his mother and his stepfather complained to police in June 1999.

Bogenschutz accused the prosecutor's office of misconduct for not alerting the defense to a Dec. 30, 1999, police report about the truck Vaden was accused of stealing. He also accused Vaden's mother, Grisel Vaden, of lying when she testified that she did not know her son was stealing cars; the police report indicated that Grisel Vaden was with her son when he allegedly confessed to stealing the truck.

"This is brand new to me," prosecutor Stacey Honowitz told Broward County Circuit Judge Stanton Kaplan. "I had absolutely no idea Donald Vaden has been arrested under a fake name."

Noting that she handles 60 cases at a time, Honowitz said she does not call every witness in every case daily and ask them if they had been arrested.

"Certainly, I would never withhold anything. Believe me, withholding information about this witness is not worth jeopardizing my license for," Honowitz said.

It was not immediately clear if Donald Vaden would be called back to testify about the felony charge.

Stepfather testifies

Honowitz continued Tuesday to call witnesses to corroborate the allegations Donald Vaden testified about, in graphic detail, for the jury on Dec. 3 and Dec. 4.

Vaden's stepfather, James Vaden, testified that he suspected something was wrong with the relationship between Donald Vaden and Friedman from the moment he met Friedman during the summer of 1997. James Vaden said Friedman took his son for a driving lesson without getting parental consent.

"I've never seen a teacher give a kid a driving lesson," James Vaden said. "I've never seen a teacher spend that much time with a child."

Vaden, a crane operator, echoed the testimony of earlier witnesses who said that Friedman and Donald Vaden spent a lot of time together in school and after school. Vaden said Donald Vaden denied that anything inappropriate was going on between him and his teacher, but finally gave into his stepfather's badgering.

James Vaden said his son claimed in the winter of 1999 that Friedman had performed oral sex on him.

"I kept asking, 'Are you screwing around with her?' He said, 'No, she blew me,'" James Vaden testified.

Under questioning by Honowitz, Vaden said he felt helpless to do anything with the information because his ex-wife, Grisel Vaden, refused to believe that Friedman was capable of such misconduct. James Vaden said he lacked proof or standing to go to police at the time.

Vaden said that after Grisel Vaden found drugs in Friedman's house, he made two anonymous phone calls to Silver Lakes Middle School, where Friedman taught Spanish, pre-law and other classes. The school's former principal, William Bell, testified Monday about receiving anonymous complaints of "impropriety" involving Friedman.

James Vaden said he continued to press Donald Vaden about the relationship, becoming increasingly more suspicious as the months went on.

Anticipating questions to come from the defense, Honowitz got James Vaden witness to concede that he suspected a sexual relationship and knew it was illegal, but he did not report it to police until June 1999. Vaden testified that he did not call authorities until his ex-wife told him that their son had confided that he had been sleeping with Friedman.

"I said, 'We've got to do something about this,'" Vaden said.

He added that Donald Vaden did not know that the police were being called. The teenager was upset when he learned because he did not want to see Friedman get into trouble, the elder Vaden testified.

"Basically, Donny lost his money source, didn't he?" Bogenschutz asked on cross-examination. "And he was upset about that wasn't, he?"

James Vaden agreed with both statements. Both Donald Vaden and his mother had testified about money, gifts, and even a car that Friedman had given him over the course of their relationship.

Also testifying Tuesday was Vince Stephens, a former security guard at the middle school where Friedman and Donald Vaden met. Stephens said he confronted Friedman about letting Vaden drive her to school in her Jeep and her father's Rolls Royce after noticing that other students and parents were talking about it.

When Vaden would act up in a class, teachers would routinely call Stephens to escort Vaden to Friedman's class in accordance with an arrangement she had worked out with the faculty, Stephens testified. On one occasion, Friedman intervened to keep a teacher from having Vaden arrested for assault, fueling Stephens' suspicions even more, he testified.

"She said, 'He's my friend and I am mentoring him,'" Stephens said.

Bogenschutz got Stephens to testify that Friedman was friendly and well-liked by many students, but Honowitz picked up on that line of questioning on redirect examination.

"Mr. Stephens, did you see her more with Donald Vaden than any other student?" the prosecutor asked.

"Yes," the witness answered.

James Vaden's testimony is expected to continue when the trial resumes Wednesday afternoon. The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.