NEW HAMPSHIRE
The News Tribune
BY LYNNE TUOHY
Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H.
The teenager who says she was raped last year by a senior at the elite St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire will return to the witness stand to testify about events surrounding the alleged assault.
The accuser, who was 15 at the time, said she initially declined an invitation by then 18-year-old Owen Labrie of Tunbridge, Vermont, to Senior Salute — the practice of seniors boys making sexual conquests of younger students before they graduate.
She said she was familiar with the tradition, but testified she didn’t think at the time it involved any “special expectations.”
Defense attorney J.W. Carney told jurors Tuesday that emails between the two suggest the girl was a willing participant.
Carney, who minimized the Senior Salute element, read to jurors from a string of emails between the two before and immediately after they got together the night of May 30, 2014 — two days before Labrie graduated. In them, the freshman agreed to meet Labrie “only if it’s our little secret.”
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