by Chessy Prout
Since when was being a victim of rape the easy way out? Who would subject her body to an invasive genital exam for kicks and willingly take harsh drugs to kill gonorrhea and other STDs? Answer phone calls from detectives before softball practice asking questions like how often do you share your underwear? Spend the first weeks of junior year getting grilled by a mobster attorney? Expose yourself and your family to high-profile scrutiny? No one would choose this.
What many people didn’t understand was that the second my counselor Buzz called the police, my assault became the State of New Hampshire v. Owen Labrie. It was not up to me whether charges were pressed. I was the primary witness in the state’s sexual assault case. My body was evidence. I agreed to make a statement and cooperate because it was the right thing to do. I wanted to stop the cycle of abuse like I wished someone at St. Paul’s had done for me.
While the jury deliberated, I huddled with all the people I loved so much. We gathered in a conference room at the prosecutor’s office, surrounded by law books, coffee mugs, and boxes of Munchkins from Dunkin’ Donuts. I couldn’t eat a thing. I folded my arms on the table and put my head down.
I was indebted to the people around that long wooden table—Mom, Dad, Lucy, Uncle Tom, Grandma Prout, Uncle Pete, Aunt Carol, Uncle Bernie, Aunt Blair, Aunt Judy, Uncle John, my other Aunt Carol, my cousins, the lawyers, the advocates, the knight in shining armor (though I had to give him back so he could protect Catherine’s next witness).
I was also thankful for the supporters who showed up during the last two weeks, including old friends from Tokyo, the Raymonds and Heintzelmans, and Mom’s crew from college: Annie, Joanie, and Nancy.
I especially appreciated my brave allies from St. Paul’s, like Buzz; my friends Catie and Lilly; Lucy’s adviser, Ms. Carter; and Dylan and his mom, Mrs. Hirschfeld. I knew my case was a nightmare for Buzz—the school had intimidated her and refused to let her speak to police without a lawyer from St. Paul’s present. It helped speed up Buzz’s retirement; she left the school a few weeks before my trial.
One day after court, I sat on a stone bench in front of the prosecutor’s office with Mandi, an older girl who had driven Lilly to my trial and had been on my softball team at St. Paul’s. Mandi had faced her own challenges at school as one of the few openly gay students.
“I know how hard it could be at that school. I’m so sorry that this happened to you,” Mandi said. “It makes me so angry.”
She looked down at her arm and took a Lokai bracelet off her wrist and handed it to me. It had one white bead infused with water from Mount Everest and a single black bead that contained mud from the Dead Sea—the highest and lowest points on earth—as a reminder to find balance during life’s peaks and lows.
I gripped the bracelet on my wrist, trying to let strength seep into my fingertips.
“Thank you, Mandi,” I said. “This means so much to me.”
The rest of the St. Paul’s community hunkered down into perfection-protection mode. Students and alumni lashed out at the negative media attention with the hashtag #SPSfam and suggested that people were just jealous. One alum supposedly posted a photo of himself and buddies from the baseball team with the hashtag #theyhateuscuztheyaintus. We were incredulous at the mob mentality.
I tried to avoid social media during the trial, but Dad and Lucy monitored everything. On my first day of testimony, Sally, the girl who’d bullied me and whose brother was arrested for assaulting Allie, posted a photo on Facebook with my former friends. She tagged Ivy and Faith in the picture.
Sally: Love these people and love my #spsfam.
That hashtag was like a big middle finger sticking up at me. But I didn’t have the energy to get offended. It just made me feel demoralized and depleted. Those were my friends—Ivy and Faith were the girls who’d comforted me in the minutes after my assault. And they didn’t care about me anymore. Didn’t care about how devastating this was. Sometimes it made me wonder, was I a horrible person? If they couldn’t stand by me, what was wrong with me?
Eventually, I realized there were many others rooting for me from a distance. While the jury deliberated, I read a stack of messages that people had sent Catherine and Laura over the last two weeks.
There were letters from a former Miss America who was an incest survivor, a former assistant district attorney, and other survivors, including Adrienne Bak, who was sexually assaulted by the infamous “preppy rapist,” Alex Kelly. I couldn’t believe that complete strangers who didn’t know my name offered more encouragement than my former classmates and teachers.
A male philosophy professor from Massachusetts emailed:
High profile cases such as yours, which expose the ugly reality of male sexual violence, do enormous work in exposing this system and encouraging other girls and women to stand up for their rights. So merely by speaking, in taking a stand not only on your own behalf but on behalf of public justice—justice for all girls and women, everywhere—you are not only protecting future girls or women from Mr. Labrie’s violence, but are helping to undermine rape culture in the US and globally. Don’t doubt yourself! Literally millions of people are rooting for you. . . .
I smiled and thought of Uncle Ron. Millions of people? No way. All that mattered right now were the twelve individuals on that jury. Nine men and three women.
At the time, I was nervous about all those men. I later learned that female jurors are more likely to acquit defendants accused of rape, according to some studies. I wondered if that’s because it’s easier for women to blame the victim than face the harsh reality that we don’t have the power to prevent rape. Either way, I really wanted to see Owen be taken away in handcuffs and locked up for the rest of his life.
Of course, Catherine had explained the possible outcomes: guilty on all counts, not guilty on all counts, or a split decision. Owen was facing four felony charges, which are more serious crimes that can be punished by more than twelve months in jail. Three of these were for rape and one was for using a computer to solicit a minor. The state also charged him with three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault for penetrating me with his penis, mouth, and fingers; one misdemeanor for endangering the welfare of a minor; and another for biting me on the chest.
Catherine tried to temper expectations of a complete victory because rape cases have very low conviction rates. A fraction of rape cases are reported to police, and even fewer get prosecuted. One study on the justice gap for sexual assault cases estimated that of every one hundred rapes committed, less than 5 result in a conviction. And less than 3 percent of rapists ever see a day in jail. It was hard to keep the faith in such a broken justice system, but I still held out hope.
Minutes churned into hours as we waited for the jury. I whipsawed between second-guessing myself—if all those boys thought it was no big deal, maybe I was being too dramatic—to fuming over the thought of Owen walking free. Anxiety kicked my ribs.
Whenever people walked by the conference room, we all jumped up from the table, hoping they had an answer. Finally Catherine got word that the jury was back. They had a verdict after deliberating for about eight hours over two days.
We walked across the street to the courthouse. Cameramen waiting by the rear door put down their equipment and nodded sympathetically. I trembled with fear as I entered the courtroom and tried clenching my fists to keep my body still. It only got worse when I looked up and saw Owen staring me and Lucy down. That piece of shit. Did he think he could intimidate us now? Lucy and I linked arms in silent solidarity.
My family built a fort around me in the front row: Mom’s arm on my shoulder, Dad’s hand on my head, and Lucy’s fingers intertwined with mine. Everyone in the courtroom stood as we waited for the verdict to be read. I fidgeted with the white beads on my bracelet and prayed for a peak.
“Madam Foreperson, has the jury reached a verdict?”
“Yes, we have.”
“How say you, Madam Foreperson? How do you find the defendant Owen Labrie on indictment nu
mber 973494c, accusing the defendant of prohibited uses of computer equipment in that he knowingly utilized a computer online service and/or Internet service to seduce, lure, or entice a female child under the age of sixteen . . . to commit an offense of sexual assault and/or related offenses by utilizing St. Paul’s school email and/or Facebook? Guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty.”
My knees buckled and I nearly collapsed.
“Do you say, Madam Foreperson, that the defendant Owen Labrie is guilty?”
“Yes.”
“So say you all members of the jury?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
Finally. I cried and pressed my forehead against Dad’s shoulder. They believed me! They saw through Owen’s lies. I looked gratefully at the jurors; some met my gaze, others cast their eyes downward.
I soon learned why. The jury found Owen not guilty of the felony rape charges. I was a cauldron of confusion and anger: How could they believe me but not convict him of raping me? Was it because I didn’t kick or scream? I said no!
But there was more: the jury then convicted Owen of three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault for penetrating a minor with his penis, finger, and mouth and another count of endangering the welfare of a child. They cleared him of the misdemeanor assault charge for biting my chest.
It was a split verdict.
I glanced at Owen, hunched over the defense table, crying dramatically. I rolled my eyes. He wouldn’t have been in this position had he just treated me like a human being and respected my words. This was all his fault.
Mom and Dad formed a protection pod around me as we left the courtroom. Catherine and Laura focused on what we had accomplished—not what we’d lost. Owen was found guilty on five of the nine counts.
They reminded me that each of the misdemeanor sexual assault charges could carry a one-year sentence. And the felony computer charge would require him to register as a sex offender in a public database and could restrict him from working in places such as schools or churches where he could prey on other children.
My mind was a dark forest as I tried to make sense of the verdict. We ducked out the rear entrance while Steve, Laura, Joe, and Catherine walked out front to address the horde of journalists.
I had made plans to get ice cream with Dylan after court, but Dad hightailed it out of Concord that afternoon, zooming down the highway at Indy 500 speeds. I texted Dylan in the car as we drove to the airport in Boston.
Me: I hope you know that the things my family and I hold against the school though is definitely not personal at all. You have been such an amazing friend through this, and your mother has been amazing showing her support every day at the courthouse . . . and hope you can always consider me to be a friend.
Dylan: I pray every day that the school can resolve the massive problems that it clearly holds. It makes me very sad sometimes that I grew up my whole life here without knowing that such a place could be very poisonous. Throughout this year I have contemplated leaving myself however one of the many things you have taught me is that standing up is the right thing to do. I want you to know that I think of you very often and I won’t leave school without giving it my every effort to make sure that such a sick person will never walk these paths again.
I had barely stepped out of the taxi in Naples when Christianna sprinted down the driveway and catapulted into my arms. The babysitter had promised to keep Christianna away from trial coverage on TV, but I wondered if my little sister had any idea what I’d been through.
I was completely wiped out, my eyelids heavy with exhaustion. And I felt bad that our whole family had abandoned Christianna on my account, so I let her dress me up in a ridiculous outfit—a red polka-dot clown costume and a knit ski cap with #SELFIE embroidered on the front, topped off with a straw hat. We did silly dance moves and took photos frolicking around the house. All I wished for was to be a kid again and forget the trial ever happened.
But my efforts to resume a normal teenage existence were short-lived. Days after the verdict, Detective Curtin called Dad, her voice taut and serious: anonymous hate sites were popping up all over the Internet. I typed my name into Google.
Online trolls had published photos of thirteen-year-old me in a bikini with a friend from Naples and listed my full name and home address, along with pictures of my house, Lucy, and Christianna. They stole photos from my Facebook account and my private Instagram page and called me “an attention whore at St. Paul’s School who tried to slime an innocent bro with a fake-rape charge.” They made racial slurs about our Japanese heritage and hurled threats like “i know my ivy frat bros are putting a target on her. she is gonna get used and abused.”
Without telling me, Dad called the father of one of Christianna’s friends, who enlisted his company’s IT guy to investigate the online attacks. After working all night and Dad dishing out thousands of dollars, the IT guy found no substantive leads. Everything was cloaked in anonymity.
Another company wanted almost $250,000 to help clean up this mess. $250,000? Dad had been out of work for nearly a year, and our savings reflected that. Lucy had two jobs to help cover her expenses at Georgetown. We didn’t have that kind of money. When Dad balked, they offered a cheaper option that was still way out of reach. Dad spared me the details at the time—he just promised to do whatever he could to exterminate the trolls.
Detective Curtin was trying her best and emailed updates.
Susan and Alex,
Please know that I am working hard on this end to find out what we can do about the websites. . . .
Sincerely,
Julie Curtin
She had contacted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, and the US Attorney’s Office. She was launching a criminal defamation and witness-tampering investigation. Our lawyer, Steve, sent takedown requests to websites registered in the United States, accusing them of violating laws around child endangerment, copyright, cyberbullying, and, potentially, child pornography.
I didn’t understand what any of that meant. All I knew was that nothing was working. The sites were still there. Panic creased my face. I was brittle with fear, worried that people would climb over the fence and storm our house. I locked all the doors and pulled down the shades. I was scared to go into my room at night and stand in front of the glass doors to close the curtains.
In the middle of all this, Dad had to leave for a business trip to New York—just like old times. He’d received a job offer right before the trial and scheduled a meeting in early September with his new employees at Morgan Stanley. The position was based in Manhattan, so Dad planned to live in his childhood bedroom at Grandma Prout’s during the week and fly home to Naples on the weekend. I was relieved Dad finally had a job, but it seemed like terrible timing. I wanted all of us to stay together. Mom needed her husband, and Christianna and I needed Dad.
The plane was delayed at the gate, and while waiting in his seat, Dad called a friend who used to work for the FBI. Dad tucked his head into the window and fought back tears: “There are these websites going up and I don’t know what to do. They are posting these horrible things about my daughter and using violent, pornographic language. Susan and I are completely distraught and there is nothing we can do. Do you know anyone who can help?”
When he hung up, a woman with short blond hair in the row ahead turned around.
“I’m so sorry, but I overheard your conversation,” she said apologetically. “Do you mind stepping into the galley with me?”
Dad warily followed her to the cramped area where the flight attendants prepared food and drinks.
“There is a reason the good Lord had me sit in front of you,” she said, and handed him a business card. “My name is Cinny Murray and I’m the president of Chico’s.”
“Okay,” he said, looking at the card for the women’s clothing chain.
“I don’t know what your story is, but all I know is that you�
�re in trouble,” Cinny said. “One of my friends is super connected to Google and Apple and has tremendous knowledge and I would love to see if he could help you.”
“What?” Dad asked incredulously. “Oh my God, yes.”
He hesitated for a moment before explaining exactly what was going on. He had worked so hard to protect my privacy for more than a year and now that was obliterated.
“My daughter is the victim in the St. Paul’s case,” he whispered. “You may have heard about the trial the other week where she testified.”
“Of course, everyone has seen that story,” Cinny said. “I’ve done a lot of work for women in shelters and I’m an advocate for these kinds of issues. My good friend Eric Singleton will change your life. He used to be the company’s chief information officer. He has extensive experience in cybersecurity.”
“I’d love to talk to him,” Dad said.
Cinny pulled out her cell phone and called Eric and summarized the situation. She was calm but spoke with urgency, as if this crisis threatened the multibillion-dollar retail empire that she oversaw.
“I’m standing in front of the father now. Okay, we’ll call you when we land,” she said, and then turned to Dad. “Eric is happy to help. He won’t be able to fix everything, but he said we can make progress.”
Eric immediately jumped in and began navigating the shadowy world of Internet trolls. It’s nearly impossible to take down rogue international sites, so the next best thing was to remove them from appearing in search engine results. Eric called his high-powered friends at Google, Bing, and Apple and sent them screenshots of the sites so they had the evidence they needed to delete them from search engines.
Eric reached out to contacts at the Secret Service, other cybersecurity friends, anyone and everyone he thought could help. But it was like whack-a-mole: as soon as one site was removed, another popped up, taunting us. I deactivated my Facebook and Instagram accounts and expunged my Snapchat of any St. Paul’s people I didn’t trust. Mom and Dad deactivated their accounts and Lucy removed family photos, trying to wipe clean our digital footprint.
