Prep school grad's lawyers seek to dismiss computer conviction putting him on sex offender registry
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Lawyers for Owen Labrie, who in August was acquitted of raping a 15-year-old classmate, filed a motion Friday asking a New Hampshire court to set aside his sole felony conviction of using the Internet to arrange the encounter.
Labrie, 19, was also found guilty of statutory rape, which is a misdemeanor, the Concord Monitor reports. Labrie was an 18-year-old senior at St. Paul’s School when the incident occurred. His felony conviction includes a prison sentence of up to seven years and mandatory sex offender registry.
“If he had merely called the 15-year-old on the telephone or spoken to her in person, there would be no additional crime,” Labrie’s lawyers wrote in their motion. “Yet because he prearranged the encounter through email and Facebook, he will be subjected to the scrutiny and humiliation of sex offender registration for the rest of his life.”
The state computer statute in question became law in 1998 after a 13-year-old girl ran away with a 22-year-old man she met in an online chat room. Labrie’s alleged behavior, his lawyers argue, is different.
“The drafters paid little attention to situations, like in this case, where the involved parties were close in age and known to each other,” the motion argues. “Rather, the underlying purpose of the legislation was to protect children from ‘the anonymous nature of the online relationship [that] allows users to misrepresent their age, gender, or interests.’ ”
Prosecutors declined to comment, the Concord Monitor reports. The article notes that the government presented Internet evidence that Labrie had been planning the encounter for months. It reportedly was part of an alleged St. Paul tradition known as the “senior salute,” where graduating seniors proposition younger students.
Amanda Grady, spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, notes that Labrie’s online messages to the girl said their date would include a walk with a view, but mentioned nothing about sex.
According to her the computer law should apply to Labrie, even though he and the girl knew each other before the incident.
Lawmakers, she told the paper, “in no way intended to carve an exemption for 18-year-olds who use their computer to groom underage teens online, then solicit them for sex.”
