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Owen Labrie sentenced to a year in jail for prep school sex assault
With his once promising future at Harvard a shambles, a former New Hampshireprep school senior convicted of having sex with an underage girl as part of an unofficial school tradition was sentenced to a year in jail and probation.
Owen Labrie, now 20, faced a possible 11-year sentence for his conviction on three misdemeanor counts of sex with a 15-year-old and one felony count of using the internet to arrange a secret encounter on the campus of St Paul’s school in Concord, New Hampshire.
Labrie’s conviction for felony use of a computer also requires he register as a sex offender for life for sending the girl a “senior salute”, an old tradition on the bucolic campus where seniors in the waning days of high school ask underclassmen on a date.
Before he was sentenced, Labrie made the sign of the cross on his chest. He stood stock still while hearing he would go to prison. His mother wept.
Judge Lawrence Smukler said he rejects Labrie’s defense argument that the jury found the teenagers had consensual sex.
“This was not consensual. You did not take the time to get to know the victim to know how she reacts to various things,” Smukler said as he announced the sentence. “The very reason it is a crime is a child, someone under the age of consent, is not sufficiently mature to handle a sexual situation with an older person. She was in over her head and that was very clear.”
Prosecutors asked the judge to give Labrie three and a half to seven years in prison and undergo sex offender treatment.
With his once promising future at Harvard a shambles, a former New Hampshireprep school senior convicted of having sex with an underage girl as part of an unofficial school tradition was sentenced to a year in jail and probation.
Owen Labrie, now 20, faced a possible 11-year sentence for his conviction on three misdemeanor counts of sex with a 15-year-old and one felony count of using the internet to arrange a secret encounter on the campus of St Paul’s school in Concord, New Hampshire.
Labrie’s conviction for felony use of a computer also requires he register as a sex offender for life for sending the girl a “senior salute”, an old tradition on the bucolic campus where seniors in the waning days of high school ask underclassmen on a date.
Before he was sentenced, Labrie made the sign of the cross on his chest. He stood stock still while hearing he would go to prison. His mother wept.
Judge Lawrence Smukler said he rejects Labrie’s defense argument that the jury found the teenagers had consensual sex.
“This was not consensual. You did not take the time to get to know the victim to know how she reacts to various things,” Smukler said as he announced the sentence. “The very reason it is a crime is a child, someone under the age of consent, is not sufficiently mature to handle a sexual situation with an older person. She was in over her head and that was very clear.”
Prosecutors asked the judge to give Labrie three and a half to seven years in prison and undergo sex offender treatment.
