Prep-school graduate gets a year in jail for sexual assault

CONCORD, N.H. -- A graduate of an exclusive New England prep school was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl as part of a competition among upperclassmen to rack up sexual conquests.

Owen Labrie, 20, of Tunbridge, Vermont, also was ordered to register as a sex offender, perhaps for the rest of his life, and serve five years of probation after he gets out of jail.

He could have received 11 years behind bars.

In imposing the sentence, Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler called Labrie a "very good liar."

A glum-looking Labrie hugged his weeping mother. He was allowed to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction.

The case scandalized St. Paul's School in Concord, a 159-year-old institution that long has educated future members of America's elite. Its alumni include Secretary of State John Kerry, former FBI director Robert Mueller, at least 13 U.S. ambassadors and three Pulitzer Prize winners.

Labrie originally was charged with rape, accused of forcing himself on the girl in a dark mechanical room in 2014. He was 18 at the time.

A jury in August cleared him of rape and convicted him instead of misdemeanor sexual assault for having intercourse and other sexual contact with an underage girl.

He also was found guilty of a felony count of using a computer -- specifically, Facebook and email -- to lure the girl.

Under New Hampshire law, anyone convicted of a felony sex crime must register for life as a sex offender, although Labrie can petition to be removed from the list 15 years after he finishes his sentence.

With good behavior, he could be out of jail in eight months.

Labrie's arrest exposed a tradition at the $55,290-a-year boarding school called Senior Salute, in which upperclassmen kept score of how many younger students they had sex with.