Victim in New Hampshire Prep School ‘Senior Salute’ Case Speaks Out

By Christine Hauser
New York Times
August 30, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/us/chessy-prout-sexual-assault-victim-of-owen-labrie-at-new-hampshire-school-speaks-out.html?_r=0

A female student at an elite prep school in New Hampshire who accused a male senior of rape in 2014 only for him to be convicted of misdemeanor charges revealed her identity on Tuesday in an interview with NBC, saying she hoped to support other victims by discussing the difficulties she has faced, including being shunned when she returned to the school.

“I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,” the teenager, Chessy Prout, who was 15 at the time of the assault at St. Paul’s School in Concord, said on “Today.”

“It’s been two years now since the whole ordeal, and I feel ready to stand up and own what happened to me and make sure other people, other girls and boys, don’t need to be ashamed, either,” she said with her parents at her side.

Ms. Prout said she was attacked in a mechanical room at the school in May 2014. In the trial that ended last August, a senior, Owen Labrie, was cleared of felony sexual assault charges but convicted of misdemeanor charges, including having sex with someone below the age of consent.

Mr. Labrie, now 20, was sentenced to a year in prison and had to register as a sex offender in New Hampshire. He was freed on $15,000 bail pending his appeal, during which he was ordered to comply with a 5 p.m. curfew at his mother’s home in Vermont.

The case cast a spotlight on a culture of secret rites and sexual conquest at St. Paul’s, including the “senior salute,” in which older students tried to engage younger ones in intimate acts: kissing, touching or more.

The trial included details about the tradition, in which a key to the mechanical room on campus was passed around by senior classmates.

Prosecutors said Mr. Labrie had drawn up a list of potential girls for his senior salute, and according to an affidavit, he told the police that he was “trying to be No. 1 in the sexual scoring at St. Paul’s School.”

Ms. Prout spent days testifying on the stand during the trial, saying that the accused had bitten her during the encounter and that she had told him “no” more than once.

Mr. Labrie said the encounter had been consensual and had stopped short of sex. A statement from his lawyers on Tuesday said, “We remain hopeful that Mr. Labrie will receive a new trial where the full truth of what occurred with be revealed.”

In the interview on Tuesday, Ms. Prout described the difficulties of testifying. “It was something that was necessary,” she said, “although it was scary.”

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without having been able to speak up for myself during that time.”

She added, “I want other people to feel empowered and just strong enough to be able to say: ‘I have the right to my body. I have the right to say no.’”

Ms. Prout said she was upset by how Mr. Labrie’s testimony was received by the jury of nine men and three women.

“They said that they didn’t believe that he did it knowingly, and that frustrated me a lot because he definitely did do it knowingly,” she said.

“And the fact that he was still able to pull the wool over a group of people’s eyes bothered me a lot and just disgusted me in some way.” The aftermath of the trial was also troubling, Ms. Prout said.

She was determined to return to the school, she said, but some male friends refused to speak to her. On one occasion, she said, two senior football players organizing a Powder Puff football game said, “‘We’re only directing this at the upper formers because we’re not allowed to look at lower formers anymore.’”

She said she was “thinking that that had to be approved by the rector of the school.”

“And they let those boys go up there and make a joke about consent and the age.”

“I tried my best to go back to my school and try to have a normal life again. But if they’re going to treat this topic as a joke, this is not a place I want to be,” she added.

Ms. Prout’s parents are suing the school for failing to “meet its most basic obligations to protect the children entrusted to its care,” The Concord Monitor reported in June, quoting a copy of the filing.

In an emailed statement about Ms. Prout on Tuesday, the school said it “admires her courage and condemns unkind behavior toward her.”

It added, “We feel deeply for her and her family.”

“We have always placed the safety and well-being of our students first and are confident that the environment and culture of the school have supported that,” the school said. “We categorically deny that there ever existed at the school a culture or tradition of sexual assault. However, there’s no denying the survivor’s experience caused us to look anew at the culture and environment.”

Ms. Prout said she was working on a new social media campaign with the nonprofit organization Pave to support victims of sexual assault.

Mr. Labrie was jailed in March after a judge ruled that he had violated his curfew in Vermont. But in May, a judge released Mr. Labrie. again on bail.