Owen Labrie, the former St. Paul’s School student convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl on campus in 2014, is now behind bars at the Merrimack County correctional facility in Boscawen, N.H., an official said Wednesday.
Superintendent Ross Cunningham
confirmed in a telephone interview that Labrie surrendered himself and will now undergo a classification process at the prison that currently houses about 220 inmates in security settings ranging from minimum to maximum.
“We have a great group of professional staff here,’’ Cunningham said. “He will be treated accordingly. We treat all our offenders fairly and with consistency.”
In 2015, Labrie was sentenced to a year behind bars for sexual assault. He was free on bail while he appealed his convictions but was sent to jail in 2016 for violating the terms of his release by missing court-ordered curfews.
Advertisement
He served 63 days at in the Boscawen prison as a result of the bail revocation order, according to court documents.
Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge Larry M. Smukler denied the 23-year-old Labrie’s request for a reduced sentence and ordered him to surrender Wednesday to start serving the nine months that remain to be served.
The victim in the case, Chessy Prout, now 20, supported Smukler’s decision in a statement released earlier this month. She called the judge’s order “important because it shows survivors that people are listening, even if it takes several years for a single case to be resolved.”
On Wednesday, Prout’s family said in a statement that Labrie “has shown no remorse nor accepted any responsibility for his actions.”
“We hope he never sexually assaults another person in the future,” read the statement.
The family praised police, prosecutors, and victim advocates for their work in the case.
“These dedicated professionals worked tirelessly in bringing the perpetrator to justice and helped shine a light on the institutional complicity of St. Paul’s School,” read the statement. “We hope this serves as a wake up call to perpetrators and the institutions that enable rape culture.”
Advertisement
In September, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office reached an agreement with the school that put that office in control of handling reports of possible child abuse on campus. That office had launched a criminal probe of the school as a result of a 2017 report that detailed sexual misconduct at the school.
The agreement was intended to “ensure a system of accountabilities, oversight, transparency, and training at the school,” according to the office.
The deal called for the selection of a compliance overseer “who would be embedded on the St. Paul’s School campus and tasked with reporting at least bi-annually to the Attorney General’s Office regarding St. Paul’s compliance with all the terms” of the agreement, authorities said.
Last week, the attorney general’s office announced that Jeffrey T. Maher was the selected as the independent compliance overseer for St. Paul’s.
Labrie was acquitted of rape charges but convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault for having sex with someone below the age of consent and using computer services to entice a minor. He received a suspended sentence on the computer services conviction.
In November, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld his convictions by a 3-0 margin.
Laura Crimaldi of Globe staff contributed to this report. John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.
Advertisement