The former prep school student convicted of sexually assaulting an underage fellow student has been sentenced to a year in jail plus probation.
Owen Labrie, who is now 20, was an 18-year-old senior at St. Paul’s School in Concord when he had the sexual encounter with a 15-year-old friend, prosecutors said. He was found guilty in August of a felony charge of using a computer to lure an underage girl into a sexual encounter, as well as three misdemeanor sexual assault charges and one misdemeanor charge of child endangerment.
The victim of a sexual assault at her New Hampshire prep school spoke out against the former fellow student convicted for the assault during his sentencing hearing.
The victim, whose name is being withheld due to her age and the nature of the crime, was not in court and gave her statement via a recorded video, describing how her life back at school has been marred by unwanted attention from boys on campus. She noted that she has regular panic attacks and “vivid flashbacks.”
“To this day, I still feel numb,” she said.
Both her mother and father testified in person, praising their daughter’s courage to come forward, and detailed how Labrie’s actions have negatively impacted their family, and how a private investigator approached the victim’s younger sister’s teacher in an effort to gain information about the victim’s character.
The victim’s mother noted how commenters online have threatened to rape her and how “college bros on college campuses would take care of that,” she said during her statement.
“The defendant has stolen so much from my daughter and from my family and what he stole we will never get back,” the victim’s father said during his testimony.
After a brief recess, Labrie’s attorney, J.W. Carney, addressed the court arguing that his client should not have to register as a sex offender and that “his life has been one of trauma” since the incident.
“The punishment that Owen Labrie has suffered up to date is enormous for him,” Carney said to the court.
Labrie did not give a statement in court today.
Carney submitted a collection of testimonials to the judge ahead of the hearing, with letters from Labrie’s teachers, friends, an ex-girlfriend, priests and parents vouching for his character.
Labrie’s mother, Denise Holland, told the judge about how her son was suicidal after his meetings with detectives at the start of the case.
“He expressed to more than one person that these detectives said they were going to take away ‘everything he had worked his whole life for,’ and that he ‘just wanted to die,’” she wrote.
She also described how the family was “deeply in debt” because of the legal expenses, and how Labrie has spent much of his time building a chapel on his father’s property after having his admission to Harvard’s Divinity School rescinded.
“His offering to God in lieu of being able to move forward with college and Divinity School at this time receives daily attention,” his mother wrote.
