But Prout has lived through more than your average teen. As for Labrie, Prout said she hopes he learned from what happened. The ghastly details of what Owen Labrie did -- how an 18-year-old senior and top student, targeted and lured Chessy into the so-called Senior Salute -- go way beyond verbal sexual harassment experienced by Carlson. Forty years ago, when I arrived at the school, co-education was still a novelty. Owen Labrie, charged with felony sexual assault, during his trial, in Concord, August 2015. “This is going to be a soapbox issue for the rest of my life,” the father says. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. Defenders of St. Paul’s point to its curriculum on “Living in Community.” In line with its tenets, students are taught “self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship building and positive decision-making.” As a prefect, or dorm leader, Labrie had received explicit training in the definition of statutory rape—“statch,” as students call it—and responsible sexual conduct, and signed a statement affirming his special obligation to follow the rules. This scene has floated to my mind during the recent trial of Owen Labrie, the Thetford boy accused last year, at 18, of raping a 15-year-old schoolmate at St. Paul's School in New Hampshire. In May 2014, as a 15-year-old high school freshman, I was sexually assaulted in a locked mechanical room by Owen Labrie, a popular senior who was headed to Harvard in the fall. The victim initially rejected Labrie’s flirtatious invitation to climb “hidden steps” to a door whose hinges had suddenly “swung open in my hands.” But after the intercession of a fellow ninth-grader—a dorm-mate of Labrie’s, now a varsity hockey player, still at the school—she relented. Owen Labrie, a former student at the elite St. Paul’s School, was sentenced to one year in prison and five years of probation after he was found guilty of … Owen Labrie, now 20, was released from jail on Monday, May 16. While St. Paul’s has long prided itself on not accepting so-called postgraduate students—at other, less posh prep schools, typically fifth-year high-school jocks brought in to round out varsity teams—it has in recent years increasingly accepted promising athletes in 9th, 10th, and even 11th grade, and then made them repeat a year, as Labrie did, so that some seniors wind up being a year older than the normal age of their classmates. The accuser, who is 16 years old and was 15 at the time of the alleged attack, testified on Day 2 of Owen Labrie's rape trial that the prep school senior tried to undress her and perform a sex act. Bio: Owen Labrie (reportedly born in 1995, from Tunbridge, Vermont) is the student at the center of the 2015 St. Paul’s Prep School Rape Case. Every other Saturday night, my friends and I were quietly allowed to stay in the school newspaper’s basement offices until one or two A.M. in order to work on it, creeping back to our dorm through the dew unafraid. Owen Labrie, now 23, was found guilty of several misdemeanor sexual assault charges, including using “computer services” to lure Chessy Prout, a fellow St. Paul’s student, to the math and science building at the prestigious New Hampshire private school in May 2014 and sexually assaulting her. The common thread? Public records and local media reports in Concord have identified the girl as a St. Paul’s senior at the time; the boy is understood to be the son of a St. Paul’s staff member. “ ‘Nuff said? I have also spoken with Owen Labrie and his father. He was 18, a scholarship boy from a bitterly broken home, a star scholar-athlete—captain of the varsity soccer team—who had won full-ride admission to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, Stanford, Middlebury, and the University of Virginia, and two days later would be the winner of the headmaster’s award for “selfless devotion to School activities.”. Cannon Labrie is a graduate of Andover with a Ph.D. from Brown, a onetime college instructor, an editor at Chelsea Green Publishing, and a sometime amateur musician. June 24, 2019. But her memoir, “Notes on a Silencing,” out next Tuesday from Little, Brown, focuses much more on what came afterward. The way The New York Times describes the alleged sexual assault at St.Paul's, it seems to have been the classic she said/he said situation. There is at least one more very heavy shoe to drop. Earlier this month, the New Hampshire Supreme Court denied Labrie's appeal to have a new trial based on ineffective counsel. What she got was something else: a physical encounter that, she testified, quickly escalated beyond her comfort. Parents paying $54,290 a year in tuition to get their children into top colleges don’t like hearing news of misbehavior by their kids—and so misbehavior is sometimes overlooked. In its most recent accreditation of St. Paul’s, in 2007, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges recommended that the school “review the balance between student freedom and institutional responsibility,” particularly “with respect to safety and supervision in the evening hours.” In 2010, the school responded in a self-evaluation, noting that dorm check-in hours had been moved up half an hour in the fall and winter to 10 P.M.; school buildings were locked at 10 P.M.; faculty were encouraged to walk around the dorms after hours; theater practices were moved from evening hours to afternoons. Instead it involved some acknowledged leaders of the school: the captain of the soccer team; editors of the newspaper; a class officer of the grade behind Labrie. She held on to her underpants with both hands. throw em in the dumpster…. Grant, O Lord,That in all the joys of life we may never forget to be kind.Help us to be unselfish in friendship,Thoughtful of those lesshappy than ourselves,And eager to bear the burdens of othersThrough Jesus Christ our Savior. He now works mostly as a landscaper. But in its sentencing memo after Labrie’s conviction, the prosecution cited various electronic communications revealing Labrie’s unvarnished views. Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, class of 1930, took a head-clearing walk around the Lower School Pond during the crisis over his subpoena of Richard Nixon’s White House tapes. Why was that? He hired and fired three lawyers and, whether out of ignorance or arrogance or wishful thinking, rejected more than one proposed plea bargain that would have involved minimal jail time and no registration as a sex offender. Former prep school student Owen Labrie to be ... 03:31 Former St. Paul’s student Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, was arrested in 2014, days after graduating from the Concord school. In his bedroom at his mother's house, in nearby Tunbridge, the same month. After six days of evidence heard from 16 witnesses in the St. Paul’s School rape trial, the jury has acquitted 19-year-old Owen Labrie of three … Labrie’s documented statements about women and sex have a dark undertone. Its distinguished alumni include the novelists Owen Wister and Rick Moody; the diplomats John Gilbert Winant and John F. Kerry; Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; the actors Judd Nelson (my classmate) and Catherine Oxenberg; plus Garry Trudeau and a passel of Pillsburys, Chubbs, Reids, Rutherfurds, and Wilmerdings, along with the worthy heirs of clergymen, diplomats, teachers, and other promising scholarship kids like Labrie. The result is that 18- and 19-year-olds are on the same campus with students as young as 14. The pair left the Lindsay building separately. A date has not yet been set for trial, but a public airing of the sordid details of the case would only bring more scrutiny to the school and raise new questions about Hirschfeld’s leadership. E-mail messages and Facebook posts showed a culture of misogyny and entitlement among some students at St. Paul's School, leading a jury to find Owen Labrie, a … Video: Owen Labrie’s Victim Speaks on Today Show Chessy Prout speaks in a Tuesday interview on NBC’s Today show about what happened to her … Remember that New England prep school senior who was accused of rape. “Anyone who has a sweet relationship can tell you it is not.” In a speech to the student body last spring, Hirschfeld recalled having heard both male and female students use the words “slay” and “slayer” in references to sexual relationships. The 17-year-old said she felt ready to "stand up and own what happened to me" during her 2014 assault by fellow St. Paul's School student Owen Labrie. The article left the victim’s family angry and distraught, they say. Owen Labrie released from jail early in sex assault case. They shared e-mail templates for inviting girls to a salute and passed around a papier-mâché “slay” mask that amounted to a kind of trophy. Not in our school.’ ”, In the spring of 2014, one faculty member, a housemaster in a girls’ dorm, complained in an e-mail to senior administrators about senior boys trolling for under-age girls. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Your California Privacy Rights. Owen Labrie, now 20, was released from jail on Monday, May 16. Judge Smukler did not adopt that recommendation but instead ordered a new “psycho-sexual evaluation” of Labrie to determine the appropriate course, and that evaluation—and any potential treatment—is on hold pending Labrie’s appeal. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. A Rape Trial Is Revealing the Details of a Competitive Sex Ritual at … There’s a complex set of human things going on.” The girl was particularly intent that the encounter remain a secret, though she would later tell Labrie that he could count it toward “the numbers” of the senior salute. St. Paul’s Before and After the Owen Labrie Rape Trial I. We should be asking these questions.” Hirschfeld’s remarks have since been removed from the school Web site. Owen Labrie, 21, puts his hand to his forehead at the end of a three-day evidentiary hearing on whether he will be granted a retrial at Merrimack County Superior Court in … Yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that something has gone badly awry at the school. As for Labrie himself, Hirschfeld says, he was “profoundly disappointed to learn of his participation in such contemptible behaviors,” and like others “felt betrayed by the duality of his life here and disheartened by his continued failure to own any part of his behavior.”, Meantime, some prominent alumni and parents have rallied around the school, or around Labrie, or both. She said he bit her breasts through the bra, hard enough to hurt her. I don't think he did it. But there were no locks on doors, and there was a pervasive attitude of mutual trust. By all accounts, the sisters are extremely close, with the younger all but idolizing the older. Amen. Owen Labrie, the prep school graduate accused of raping a younger student at St. Paul’s School, was found not guilty on the main sexual assault charge. How about accountability?” In its school prayer, St. Paul’s asks divine help to “bear the burdens of others.” Its own burdens are the ones that need attention now. At just 15 years old, she was sexually assaulted by Owen Labrie on the grounds of St. Paul's, a … St. Paul’s certainly had its problems. There was serious drug and alcohol abuse by students (and, in the case of alcohol, by some teachers), and these issues were dealt with inconsistently. She says she said “no” three times. Instead, Labrie has chosen to go for broke, filing a kitchen-sink notice of appeal, preserving his options for contesting the guilty verdicts on multiple grounds. Labrie, who is now 23 years old, was a student at the prestigious St. Paul's School in New Hampshire when he was accused of sexually assaulting a younger student. Last fall, the authorities in New Hampshire charged Donald Levesque, a former teacher’s assistant at a nearby day school, with luring two of his former students—an 18-year-old girl and an under-age boy—in December 2013 for a mutual sexual encounter in his home, and with repeatedly abusing the boy over several months. They say some of her volleyball teammates declined to eat with her the first night back and that members of the men’s hockey team stood up and pointed at her as she walked down the street. But the Labrie case shows that there may be aspects of life in the privileged—and highly independent—atmosphere of an elite boarding school that allowed an Owen Labrie to flourish undetected. Like a Rashomon episode of Showtime’s The Affair, almost everything else depends on the protagonists’ divergent perspectives, dueling recollections, and diametrically opposed interpretations of intent. Alumnus Todd S. Purdum investigates his alma mater. He attended the school with the help of scholarship aid and went on to a successful career in international finance, based for many years in Tokyo, where the victim attended Catholic elementary school. Students make their way to Coit Dormitory, named for the first rector at St. Paul’s. Owen Labrie, now 19, was cleared of three counts of felony sexual assault, each of which carried up to 20 years in prison. About every 10 years since the mid-1990s, St. Paul’s has been consumed by scandal: one rector resigned after a no-confidence vote by the faculty; a second was forced to resign after a state investigation into his compensation; and now there is the Labrie affair. Wednesday marked the second day of testimony in the trial of Owen Labrie, a 19-year-old former St.… Read more Earlier this year, Prout’s family filed a lawsuit against St. Paul’s School. The school kept painting over it, only to have the list repeatedly reappear. In public statements, St. Paul’s and many of its students, alumni, and friends have insisted that what happened in this case was not representative of the broader culture of an institution that, since its founding, in 1856, has educated the cream of the American aristocracy. There are two very different accounts of what happened the evening of May 30, 2014, at the elite prep school between 18-year-old scholar-athlete Owen Labrie and a 15-year-old freshman girl. Labrie is now back in Vermont with his mother and spending time with his father, who lives about 10 miles away. In a 2013 essay in the school newspaper, The Pelican, Labrie himself had written about the practice. They shared stolen keys not just to the science-building mechanical room but to other private spaces on the grounds. (MORE: Owen Labrie is back in court, seeking a new trial). Former prep school student Owen Labrie to be ... 03:31 Former St. Paul’s student Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, was arrested in 2014, days after graduating from the Concord school. Its statements about the case have been so heavily lawyered as to lack proper nouns, action verbs, even palpable sadness. Their message was somewhat undercut by the fact that one of the signers, now a freshman at Princeton, is identified in court documents as having received stolen keys from Labrie. Owen Labrie’s life is also in shambles. He says they never had sex. Labrie had solicited the defense fund in a letter that the prosecution contended violated the terms of his pre-trial release, which barred him from contacting the victim or her family or anyone associated with St. Paul’s, but since he was in the process of firing his lawyer at the time, prosecutors conceded he might not have been aware of the conditions. “And that’s all I can ever hope for in any process like this, because if he doesn’t learn, he will do it to another young woman.” FULL STORY: Owen Labrie's accuser reveals identity, wants to … It would not be unreasonable to imagine that much more could be done. Owen Labrie was acquitted last year of felony rape but convicted on lesser charges against a 15-year-old classmate at New Hampshire's elite St. Paul's School. Part of the charges included using a computer to lure an underage individual for sex, which required him to register as a sex offender, according to the AP. Owen Labrie's attorney confirmed to ABC News that he was released from Merrimack County’s jail Monday morning after nearly six months. She didn’t know how hard to press. He says she giggled and seemed to enjoy their kissing, caressing, and rolling around—an assessment she does not dispute. Prout was 15 years old when she was sexually assaulted by Owen Labrie at the St. Paul’s School. For its part, the school has been hamstrung by legal constraints and fears of the victim’s lawsuit. What is perhaps most depressing from the trial testimony, and documents submitted by the prosecution at the time of Labrie’s sentencing, is that the rite in which Labrie participated was not the province of disaffected or marginalized students who were known rule breakers. The one sentiment that unites the families of Labrie and the victim is outrage at St. Paul’s. His parents are Cannon Labrie and Denise Holland. Owen Labrie (born October 11, 1995) is an American Controversial Personality from Concord, New Hampshire. This all apparently came as a shock to faculty and administrators—including Hirschfeld, a onetime scholarship kid and athlete, who is said to have seen in Labrie something of himself, the very model of a St. Paul’s student, the kind of person that the school’s diploma would have called in my day a “juvenis optimae spei,” a youth of brightest hope. All of this makes me sad. The school transformed the... III. In October, he was sentenced to a year in jail, five years of probation, and lifetime registry. Labrie’s victim is the middle daughter of a 1980s-era graduate of St. Paul’s. When the St Pauls rape trial verdict was announced yesterday, I was shocked beyond words. He remains free while he appeals the convictions, with a legal team led by the former president of the New Hampshire Bar Association and with a likely assist from Alan Dershowitz, who is himself in the midst of vigorously disputing allegations that he had sex with an under-age girl. By Sunday morning, again at the urging of her friends, she was worried enough about a possible pregnancy that she went to the infirmary and asked for a “Plan B” contraception pill, but told the nurse on duty that she’d had consensual sex. He finally settled on J. W. Carney, a prominent Boston defense lawyer who has also represented the mobster Whitey Bulger, retaining his services with $100,000 raised from several St. Paul’s families.