Owen Labrie, 19, formerly a student at St. Paul’s High School in Concord, N.H., was acquitted Friday of aggravated sexual assault against a 15-year-old former classmate, a case that drew national attention because it’s the former prep school of John Kerry and other elite alumni.
Still, Labrie was convicted of misdemeanor statutory rape and of using a computer to entice a minor, charges that could lead to several years in prison. Prior to the trial, Labrie was due to enroll at Harvard.
The alleged encounter occurred when Labrie was 18, and the alleged rape was said to have occurred as part of a tradition known as the ”Senior Salute,” where upperclassman males compete with each other to sleep with the most freshman or sophomore virgin girls.
Labrie insisted that while he boasted to his friends that they had slept together, he had lied, and that they had been physically involved in a way that stopped short of sex. The accuser, who took the stand, maintained that this account was untrue, and that he raped her, and bit, scraped and scratched her all over her body.
