Jury
mulls fate of defendant in New Hampshire prep school rape trial
Send a link to a friend
[August 28, 2015]
By Ted Siefer
CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) - A New Hampshire
jury is set to begin its first full day of deliberations on Friday in
the trial of Owen Labrie, a former student at an elite prep school
accused of raping a 15-year-old freshman girl on campus days before his
graduation.
|
The trial, which began last week, has exposed uncomfortable
aspects of the culture of St. Paul’s School, a nearly 160-year-old
academy whose alumni include powerful U.S. business and political
leaders such as Secretary of State John Kerry.
The alleged victim acknowledged agreeing to a "senior salute" in May
2014 - a long-standing tradition among students that involved
seniors inviting underclassmen to get together before graduation,
often for sexual purposes.
Prosecutors argued that Labrie, 19, went much further than the girl
wanted to go and ignored her signals to stop.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Aug/28/images/ads/current/hartsburggrain_daily_sda_021115.png) Labrie testified that their encounter, in the machine room on the
top floor of a school building, was entirely consensual, and that he
stopped before having intercourse, telling the jury: "It wouldn't
have been the good choice for me to make."
But the girl, who was on the stand for more than two days at the
start of the trial, maintained that Labrie aggressively kept pushing
her until she was "frozen" in fear and unable to resist.
"I was raped, I was violated in so many ways," the girl said through
tears last week.
A key component of the trial has been the online communications
between Labrie and the girl, as well as with his friends before and
after the alleged assault.
Labrie's attorneys pointed to messages showing the girl continued to
communicate affectionately with him immediately after their
encounter.
[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Aug/28/images/ads/current/graue_2014_Silverado_060315.png)
The girl accepted Labrie's senior salute with the stipulation, in
French, that it be their "little secret," according to one message.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, seized on Facebook messages Labrie wrote to
his close friends boasting that he had sex with the girl, telling
one that he succeeded in doing so by pulling "every trick in the
book."
The jury of nine men and three women is weighing nine charges
against Labrie, the most serious of which are three counts of sexual
assault on a minor that each carry maximum sentences of 20 years in
prison.
(Reporting by Ted Siefer; Editing by Scott Malone and Eric Beech)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Aug/28/images/ads/current/christian_village_lda_till_083115.png) |