NH judge revokes bail of former prep school student

Updated
Judges Revokes Owen Labrie's Bail
Judges Revokes Owen Labrie's Bail

CONCORD, N.H., March 18 (Reuters) - A New Hampshire judge on Friday revoked the bail of a former student at an elite prep school who was convicted last year of using a computer to lure an underage fellow pupil into a sexual encounter after his lawyer admitted he had violated its terms.

Owen Labrie, 20, was handcuffed and led away by bailiffs after Judge Larry Smukler ordered him to begin serving his one-year prison sentence. The judge had previously allowed Labrie to remain at large while he appealed his conviction.

Labrie's high-profile trial cast a harsh light on the culture of the elite St. Paul's School and the student tradition of a "senior salute," in which students in their final year seek underclassmen for sexual encounters.

See images from the verdict:

"I will observe that there have been credibility issues throughout this trial," Smukler said.

The terms of Labrie's bail had required him to live at his mother's home in Tunbridge, Vermont, with a daily curfew from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.

But a journalist late last month encountered and interviewed Labrie on a subway train in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard University. Prosecutors said on Friday that Labrie had returned home later than allowed by his curfew on multiple occasions.

Labrie's attorney, J.W. Carney, had told the judge that his client had begun attending college at an unnamed school in Boston. He said that he had not sought the judge's permission to modify bail terms in a court filing because he believed it would have been unsafe to make details of his routine known publicly.

Labrie's attorneys had argued that he should have only been sentenced to probation, having already lost a full scholarship to Harvard and facing the prospect of a lifetime registry as a sex offender.

St. Paul's is one of the nation's top prep schools, and its alumni include well-known figures in business and politics, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.


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