Teen girl at St. Paul's Rape Trial: "I felt frozen"
CONCORD, N.H. -- A teenage girl who accused a senior at an elite New Hampshire prep school of raping her told jurors Wednesday that she felt "frozen" when he became aggressive.
The accuser testified that Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, bit her breast and tried to pull her underwear off in a building at St. Paul's School two days before his graduation in 2014. On the witness stand, the girl said she was in pain when he bit her and during intercourse but said nothing to Labrie, who was 18 at the time. She was a 15-year-old freshman.
"I'm thinking how naive of myself, and I never should have left my room that night," she testified. "I felt like I was out of my body. ... I didn't want to believe this was happening to me."
Prosecutors have said the rape occurred as part of a tradition at St. Paul's called "Senior Salute" in which seniors try to have sex with or romance underclassmen.
Labrie, now 19, has pleaded not guilty to several felony charges and maintains the two had consensual sexual contact -- a misdemeanor considering their ages -- but did not have intercourse, which would be a felony.
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. In them, the freshman agreed to meet Labrie, saying "only if it's our little secret."
When questioned about seemingly breezy emails and Facebook exchanges in the hours after their encounter -- including messages in which she repeated uses "ha ha ha" -- the now-16-year-old girl explained, "I didn't want to show weakness. ... I wanted to control a situation where I completely lost control."
She said she kept the conversation light in order to ascertain whether he'd worn a condom. She said her girlfriend had insisted she ask.
The Associated Press generally doesn't identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted.
Prosecutor Catherine Ruffle described the Senior Salute as "the context for this entire event."
St. Paul's is a member of a group of elite U.S. prep schools and counts as alumni an international roster of senators, congressmen, ambassadors, Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel laureates and two World Series of Poker winners.
The girl testified Wednesday that when he tried to lower his head to her genital area, she pulled at his head and said, "No, no, no, no. Keep it up here." She said she expected that "he would respect me."
She testified Labrie laughed and called her "a tease."
The teen said she initially declined Labrie's invitation to participate in the Senior Salute. She said she was familiar with the tradition.
"I thought his intentions were really wrong," she testified but relented when a friend persuaded her that Labrie was sincere in trying to pay some attention to her. She said she never thought it would involve a sex act.
The rape investigation began several days after the encounter and Labrie was arrested in July 2014. He had been accepted to Harvard but is no longer enrolled there.
Carney said after court Tuesday that he is looking forward to his chance to question the accuser, but it was unclear at Wednesday's lunch break whether the prosecutor would wrap up her questions by day's end.