Rape case sheds light on ‘Senior Salute’

Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H.

St. Paul’s School boasts a glittering roster of alumni that includes senators, congressmen, a Nobel laureate and the current secretary of state. The elite prep school also purportedly has a sordid tradition of sexual conquest where graduating boys try to take the virginity of younger girls before getting their diplomas.

Details of a practice authorities say was called the “Senior Salute” were spelled out in stark terms by a former prefect at the New Hampshire school who is charged with raping a 15-year-old girl on the roof of a campus building in May 2014.

Owen Labrie, now 19, has pleaded not guilty to several felonies. When his trial begins today, prosecutors are expected to call current and former students to testify about the sexual culture at one of the country’s most-selective boarding schools.

Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vt., talked openly about the tradition when he was interviewed by Concord police. On a campus where upperclassmen studiously avoid their younger peers in most settings, Labrie told a detective some students “take great pride” in having sex with younger students before they leave school.

Labrie also told the detective of a contest where boys compete to “score” with the most girls, keeping a running tally written in indelible marker on a wall behind washing machines. The school kept painting over the scoreboard so it eventually was moved online. He acknowledged to the detective he was “trying to be No. 1,” the detective wrote.

A counselor who contacted police after hearing from the mother of the purported victim also told an investigator about the tradition, the Concord Monitor reported last year, citing a police affidavit. The same affidavit said the school had been trying to educate students against “sexual scoring.”

Prosecutors have not indicated how far back they believe the “Senior Salute” goes.

A student leader honored at graduation – two days after the purported assault – with the Rector’s Award for “selfless devotion to school activities,” Labrie was accepted to Harvard but the school said in September that he is no longer enrolled.