Prep School Rape Defense: Girls Were "Honored" to Be Targets in Sex Game
Nineteen-year-old Owen Labrie, a former prefect at the elite St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, stands accused of raping a 15-year-old student in 2014 as part of the school’s unofficial, traditional sex competition where senior men try to sleep with as many underclassmen as possible. Labrie’s defense, presented by his attorney J. W. Carney Jr. at trial this week: the girls totally asked to be a part of this game.
The game is called the “Senior Salute,” and Labrie previously admitted to Concord police that during his senior year, he was “trying to be number one.” Labrie, whose admittance to Harvard was rescinded after he was charged with rape, allegedly forced himself on his 15-year-old victim in the school’s mechanical room after asking her to be a part of the “salute.” She says she was hesitant to meet him, but a male friend persuaded her to go by telling her that she would not have to have sex. When she got the room, prosecutors say, Labrie tried to remove her underwear. She resisted, but prosecutors say Labrie then had sex with her.
Labrie’s lawyer says the sex never happened. In his opening statement, Carney insisted that “the encounter was consensual and limited,” per the New York Times. He then offered an explanation as to why a girl might lie about sex: “The [St. Paul] girls would be honored and proud about this, that they were the focus of the senior salute.”
This is a barely cleaned up version of what Labrie told police himself—that having sex with senior men is a “great source of pride for younger students.”
Yes, Labrie and his lawyer are arguing that it was the unwitting targets of the “Senior Salute” who were taking pride in the game, not the players angling to be “number one.”
The New York Times notes that when the alleged victim took the stand yesterday, she “seemed to sob as she identified Mr. Labrie in the courtroom.”
