Before Erica Chevillar was known as former Yankee Jim Leyritz's birthday pal, she was the "Bikini Teacher" of Boca Raton, Fla. 

Erica Chevillar, a Playboy model and now former teacher, attended a party with Leyritz immediately before he allegedly drove drunk, killing Fredia Veitch. Read about that here.

Cops said Leyritz ran a red light before crashing his 2006 Ford Expedition into Veitch's Mitsubishi. Tragic.

Chevillar made national news last year when she was forced out of her 10th-grade teaching job over sexy swimsuit shots that surfaced on the Internet. The picture online are safe and can be found here.

Chevillar, 26, was in her first-year as a social studies teacher making $33,000 a year when a parent complained about the photos of her posing for the U.S.A. National Bikini Team.

She got scolded from the principal at West Boca High School and resigned rather than fight the disciplinary action.

Once word of the story - and the pictures - spread, she parlayed the attention into a string of lucrative modeling gigs.

In March, she shed the bikini and everything else for a steamy spread in Playboy. You can see the NSFW photos here. MySpace profile is here. Maxim profile here.