FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Was teenager Donald Vaden the secret, underaged lover of teacher Beth Friedman, or a shakedown artist who tried to recruit his friends to testify against the 42-year-old defendant in an unusual statutory rape case winding down in Broward County Circuit Court?

Prosecutor Stacey Honowitz will argue the former during closing arguments scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday. Honowitz has the burden of proving six criminal counts against Friedman, who the prosecutor says seduced Vaden into a sexual relationship with gifts when he was a 15-year-old student in her middle school class.

Defense lawyer David Bogenschutz, who rested his case Tuesday, will argue that there is no credible evidence that Vaden and Friedman ever had sex. He will likely remind the jury that two witnesses, both friends of Vaden, testified that the alleged victim in the case told them he intended to "set up" Friedman.

Honowitz was forced to recall Vaden to the witness stand on Tuesday to rebut Monday's testimony by a defense witness. Jonathan Tucker says that Vaden offered him money in 1996 or 1997 to testify that Tucker saw Vaden and Friedman flirting and kissing.

Vaden, now a 19-year-old roofer, insisted Tuesday that he did not meet Tucker until 1999 and that they were not that close. He conceded that the pair smoked pot together and were among a group of youths who stole a truck after the allegations about Friedman surfaced in 1999.

Vaden said he had implicated Tucker in the truck theft, suggesting a possible motive for Tucker's testimony that Vaden recruited him to lie in court. Vaden testified that he ran into Tucker, now 21, in 2000 and Tucker tried to get him to fight. When asked why by Honowitz, Vaden replied, "Because he went to jail for the truck and I didn't."

Vaden also denied everything else Tucker testified to on Monday. For example, Vaden said his mother had never yelled at him that getting arrested for stealing the truck was going to "ruin everything" — a reference to either a civil lawsuit or the Friedman prosecution, the defense inferred.

Vaden said he was barely talking to his mother around the time of the truck theft because he was still upset that she had turned Friedman in to police two months earlier. Vaden previously testified that he was a willing participant in a sexual relationship with Friedman and did not want to see her get into trouble.

"I was mad at her for taking Beth away from me," Vaden said at one point.

"Did you ever tell Jonathan Tucker you wanted to set up Beth Friedman?" Honowitz asked.

Vaden said no.

"I didn't try to set nothing up. I'm telling the truth," Vaden said.

Grisel Vaden

Forced on the defensive somewhat by several of nine witnesses who testified on Friedman's behalf, Honowitz also called Grisel Vaden, Donald Vaden's mother, back to the witness stand. Grisel Vaden testified that she never tried to get Friedman's former roommate, Eva Rudnick, to lie and say she saw inappropriate contact between Friedman and Donald Vaden.

"I said, 'If you have anything to say you should go tell somebody,'" Grisel Vaden testified. "She said, 'It's hard. Our families are so close.'"

Dorry Press

On the same issue, prosecution witness Dorry Press testified on rebuttal that Rudnick was never asked during that meeting to lie. Press, a former neighbor of Friedman who is now close to Grisel Vaden, also stood by her previous testimony that she was walking her dog one morning at 3 a.m. when she saw Friedman and Donald Vaden in a swimming pool locked face-to-face in a "bear hug."

Closing arguments are expected to take all afternoon Wednesday and may spill over to Friday morning. There is currently no court scheduled for Thursday. If convicted on all counts, Friedman could face up to 76 years in prison.

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.