Friday, August 28, 2015
Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H.
Jurors deliberating the fate of a former prep school senior charged with raping a freshman were left to decide Thursday who was more credible: the defendant, who credited “divine inspiration” with helping him end their escalating sexual encounter, or the accuser, who couldn’t recall telling a friend what sex acts she was prepared to perform.
Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vt., faces six sexual-assault charges, three of them felonies, over his encounter last year with the 15-year-old girl in the attic of a near-deserted building at St. Paul’s School. Prosecutors say the encounter happened when Labrie was 18 years old as part of Senior Salute, a school tradition of sexual conquest in which seniors try to romance or have sex with underclassmen before graduation.
Jurors deliberated about 31/2 hours Thursday after hearing closing arguments and instructions from the judge. They are scheduled to return this morning.
Labrie contends he and the girl had consensual sexual contact but not intercourse May 30, 2014, two days before his graduation.
Labrie’s lawyer, J.W. Carney, told the jury the girl testified she had no recollection of her conversation with her best friend before meeting Labrie because to admit she stated graphically what conduct she was prepared to engage in “would destroy the whole image she’d been trying to create.”
“If you conclude she was not being truthful then I submit it taints her entire testimony,” Carney said. “In order to put forward this story, she was willing to tell a lie about a critical fact right in front of you.”
Prosecutor Joseph Cherniske said the girl’s expectations before her encounter with Labrie don’t matter.
“Does that mean she can’t change her mind?” he asked. “We’re here because [she] said no.”
Both lawyers also took aim at the culture of the school and Senior Salute, with the prosecutor stressing Labrie told police participants “take great pride in taking the virginity of younger students.” Carney said Senior Salute led to the “tragedy that befell both these kids.”
The case has cast a critical light on St. Paul’s, which boasts as alumni an international roster of senators, congressmen, ambassadors, Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel laureates and other notables, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.