CONCORD, N.H. — A graduate of an elite prep school who was convicted of having sexual contact with a 15-year-old classmate as part of a game of sexual conquest will be required to register as a sex offender for life, a punishment his lawyer likens to being branded and legal experts and reform advocates say exceeds the crime.
Owen Labrie, 19, was convicted Friday following a two-week trial full of lurid details that exposed a practice at St. Paul's School known as Senior Salute, in which graduating students try to have sex with younger classmates. Besides a felony conviction for using a computer to invite the girl to the encounter when he was 18 years old, he was convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault and child endangerment. He faces anywhere from probation to 11 years in prison when he's sentenced in October.
Under New Hampshire's 1992 law that established the sex offender registry, the felony conviction mandates lifetime registration, though a change made in 2008 means Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, can petition the court to be removed from the list 15 years after the end of his sentence. The misdemeanor charges put him on the list for at least 10 years before he can ask to be removed.
Labrie had been accepted to Harvard University and planned to take divinity courses. He testified that he and the girl had consensual sexual contact after he invited her to participate in Senior Salute, but he denied having intercourse. The girl acknowledged going willingly with Labrie to an academic building on the Concord campus two days before graduation last year but said she was unprepared when he became aggressive.
Professor Stephen Saltzburg, from the George Washington University Law School, said Labrie's registry registration could be viewed as excessive.
"There's a good case to be made that, while the young man may have taken advantage of a considerably younger female, the idea of lifetime registration seems over the top," Saltzburg said.
The public list of people who have committed sex crimes against children, which is posted online, includes an offender's name, age, address, photograph, crimes and, sometimes, a victim profile.
After the trial, Labrie's lawyer said the convictions "forever changed" his life and will be like "a brand, a tattoo" that will follow him. Lawyer J.W. Carney declined to comment on Monday. Labrie is free on $15,000 bail as he awaits sentencing. ..Continued.. by RIK STEVENS
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