Rape trial targets elite prep school's 'salute'
The sexual proclivities of students at a prestigious New England prep school are drawing scrutiny at a former student's rape trial that opened Tuesday in Concord, N.H.
Owen Labrie, 19, was within days of graduation from St. Paul's School in May 2014 when prosecutors say he lured a 15-year-old freshman to a secluded room on campus and raped her. Both sides have claimed the encounter was part of a "senior salute" ritual allegedly involving seniors scoring sexual conquests prior to graduation.
Prosecutor Catherine Ruffle said the tradition meant different things to different students and that the victim expected some intimacy but instead was raped. Defense lawyer Jay Carney says the teens had consenting sexual contact but not sex when they met in a secluded room on campus.
On the witness stand Tuesday, the accuser broke down crying and pointed at Labrie when asked if he was in the courtroom. She told jurors the two weren't friends and that he was a classmate of her older sister. She said she thought his invitation to a Senior Salute, when seniors seek out young students as sexual conquests, was "disgusting" because it was written so sappily.
"I thought his intentions were really wrong," she said, but she reconsidered when a male friend persuaded her.
The teen said Senior Salute was well known on campus but she didn't think it involved any special expectations.
Defense lawyer J.W. Carney said Labrie will testify he had consensual sexual contact with the girl two days before he graduated last year, but that they did not have intercourse. Carney told jurors that email and Facebook exchanges between the two will show the girl met Labrie, who was 18 at the time, willingly and bantered with him after their encounter.
Carney, who minimized the Senior Salute element, read to jurors from a string of emails between the two before and immediately after the encounter. In them, the girl agreed to meet Labrie "only if it's our little secret."
In an email exchange after the encounter, Carney told jurors, she wrote: "You're not so bad yourself. I also lost my earring up there."
"Does this sound like texting where she is unwilling that night?" Carney asked.
Ruffle said the girl would testify that the two had removed some clothing and were kissing when Labrie became more assertive. The girl said no and clutched her underwear with both hands to try to stop Labrie, but he forced himself on her, Ruffle said.
"She's going to testify the defendant became very aggressive, very fast," Ruffle told jurors. "He pulled her bra down, he bit her breast and it was painful."
"She's a 15 year-old girl without sexual experience," Ruffle said. "She tried to say no, tried to use her physical conduct to let him know this was not OK."
After opening statements, jurors visited the campus at St. Paul's, whose alumni include Secretary of State John Kerry. Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau also is an alum, as are 13 U.S. ambassadors, three Pulitzer Prize winners and sons of the Astor and Kennedy families. The school enrolls about 530 students and admitted girls for the first time in 1971. Tuition, room and board costs $53,810 a year.
According to police affidavits, Labrie spoke freely about the Senior Salute and about a contest in which seniors tried to have sex with the most underclassmen. He said that as a student leader he tried to educate others against the practice. He was given the Rector's Award at graduation for "selfless devotion to school activities."
Ruffle also told jurors that Labrie on March 31, 2014, made a list of girls he considered for "possible Senior Salutes" and the only name in capital letters was that of the accuser.
Carney told the jury the case is "about two high school kids and the experiences they have growing up. Everything, including the confusion, the impressions, the retroactive view, in hindsight, about what happened."
Labrie, from Tunbridge, Vt., had been set to enroll at Harvard in the fall of 2014.
Contributing: The Associated Press