Prep school rape suspect says he lied to friends, never had sex with girl
They were having a good time, Owen Labrie said, making out and rolling around in a secluded room on the campus of their elite prep school. So good, he said, that he thought they might have sex.
But as he stood over the 15-year-old half-naked girl, rolling on a condom, he had a sudden change of heart. He called it “divine intervention.’’ Maybe they shouldn’t do this, he thought. So, he says, they didn’t.
“You want all of these people to believe that after all that time thinking about her and having foreplay, you just stopped,’’ Prosecutor Joe Cherniske asked.
All day Wednesday, Owen Labrie sat on the witness stand in a Concord, New Hampshire courtroom and tried to convince a jury that he isn’t who prosecutors are making him out to be: a rapist.
Labrie is charged with raping the girl – penetrating her with his fingers, tongue, and penis – just two days before he graduated from St. Paul’s School, when he was 18. He is facing other, misdemeanor charges because legally, she could not consent to any kind of sex. Closing arguments are set for Thursday morning.
Last week, over three days, the jurors heard from the girl, as she defended her nervous laughter during the encounter, her cordial messages after the fact, and her failure to say it wasn’t consensual until days later. She says she was frozen and terrified.
Behind the encounter was a game called Senior Salute, where students send invitations to one another to spend time together, and sometimes hook up, before the senior graduates.
Prosecutors say Labrie and his friends were fixated on how many girls they could “slay’’ before the year was up. Labrie had a list: the now-16-year-old girl’s name was in all capital letters.
Labrie, who was at St. Paul’s on a scholarship and headed to Harvard College before he was charged, told the court that he’d had a crush on the girl and was thrilled when she accepted his invitation to spend time together the night of May 30, 2014. They checked out the roof of a tall campus building, then retreated to the dark room where they kissed, rolled around, and took some of each others’ clothes off.
“I thought she was having a great time,’’ he told his defense attorney J.W. Carney.
She said nothing to make it seem like she wasn’t having fun, he said. The girl, however, said she told him to stop when he tried to perform oral sex on her, but he didn’t listen.
Labrie said there was no penetration. He kissed her and the two grinded on each other and maybe he may have had some pre-ejaculate — something he never shared with detectives — which would account for the sperm found on her underpants. But they didn’t have sex, he said.
What about his friends, who testified on Monday that he told them that he and the girl had sex, Cherniske asked. Why’d he say that to his best friends — why did he lie to them — multiple times?
It was just an attempt to “make myself look better,’’ Labrie said. “I wanted to look good.’’
Labrie was faced with his own words, some of which were among 119 messages he tried to delete from Facebook after talking to detectives. Over and over, Cherniske asked Labrie if he wanted to have sex with the girl, did he want to slay her, did he want to score with her or hook up with her. He showed Labrie his own messages mentioning those desires.
Labrie tried to wiggle out of answering them, answering no, or “not necessarily.’’
“I’m joking with my friends,’’ he said. “They know of my affection for her.’’
He didn’t want to have sex with her, he insisted, until the moment he put the condom on.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com