Owen Labrie, 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, faced nine charges, including three

He was acquitted Friday of felony rape charges but convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault charges as well as a felony for using a computer to lure a minor for sexual contact.

The misdemeanor guilty verdicts were for sexual assault, including penetration, but the felony rape charges would have required a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the girl did not consent.

Central to the trial was the “senior salute”, a longstanding tradition among St. Paul’s students that involved seniors inviting underclassmen to get together before graduation, often for sexual purposes.

The girl who filed charges against Labrie, whose name is being withheld in the press, said their encounter started out as consensual but Labrie didn’t listen to her when she said “no” three times.

Semen was found in the young woman’s underwear, but it could not be determined if it was Labrie’s semen. “This conviction requires him to take ownership for his actions and gives him the opportunity to reflect upon the harm he has caused”. He said Labrie was convicted because he wasn’t mature enough to tell his friends the truth.

He could face a sentence of up to 11 years in prison for the charges he was found guilty of.

“There are no winners here”, said Kleiman, citing the damage to the reputation of elite St. Paul’s School.

In a statement, St. Paul’s commended the girl for stepping forward and vowed to “continue to focus on teaching our students our core values – that they live honorably, respectfully, and never forget to be kind”. When questioned about breezy email and Facebook exchanges that she had with Labrie in the hours afterward, she explained that she kept the conversation light because she was trying to find out whether he had worn a condom.

Even in New Hampshire, where prosecutors don’t have to prove a suspect used force on a victim, only that the victim indicated that he or she was unwilling, the measures the young girl took couldn’t convince the jury.

“She thought she could handle going with an 18-year-old boy for a Senior Salute”, Cherniske said. In New Hampshire, the judge can decide to impose no prison or jail time for all of the charges, including the computer felony. It was in this context that Labrie emailed the girl and convinced her to meet in an isolated room in an attic.

Defense attorney J.W. Carney accused St. Paul’s of allowing the “Senior Salute” to flourish.

County prosecutor Catherine Ruffle said she regarded the outcome as a victory.

Labrie acknowledged Wednesday that he bragged to his buddies he and the woman had intercourse and he had to make use of “each trick within the ebook” for it to occur. “It’s overreaching, and I expect we will address it in a motion to be filed within the next 30 days”.

The statute was “never intended for kids getting together consensually at the high school that they both attend”, he said.

Maybe they wanted her to say no more forcefully, to kick or scream or bite or run from Labrie.

“Implicit in the jury verdict is they believed he was lying, but he wasn’t convicted of offenses where he engaged in sexual intercourse against her consent”, said Albert “Buzz” Scherr, a professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. But as prosecutors asserted Thursday, Labrie’s account was tenuous, at best.

Carney had argued that Labrie and the teen, whose sister was a senior at the school, had a mutually flirtatious relationship and went on to have a consensual encounter that stopped short of intercourse.