U.S. prep school rape trial opens with details of sexual conquest game ‘Senior Salute’

WATCH ABOVE: Accuser in US prep school rape trial takes the stand in emotional day in court

Nineteen-year-old Owen Labrie is charged with raping the then-15-year-old girl at St. Paul’s School in Concord two days before he graduated last year.

Prosecutors have said the rape occurred as part of a tradition at St. Paul’s called “Senior Salute” in which seniors try to have sex with or romance underclassmen. St. Paul’s is a member of a group of elite U.S. prep schools and counts as alumni an international roster of senators, congressmen, ambassadors, Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel laureates and World Series of Poker winners.

Defence attorney J.W. Carney, reading from a Concord police affidavit detailing the friend’s interview, asked the accuser if she had talked to her friend about what she would let Labrie do to her.

The girl responded that she had no recollection of that.

She testified that Labrie bit her breast and tried to pull her underwear off in a school building on May 30, 2014. On the witness stand, the girl said she was in pain when he bit her and during intercourse but said nothing to Labrie, who was 18 at the time.

She testified she felt “frozen” when he became aggressive and she initially felt like the sex assault was her fault for not kicking or screaming or trying to push him off.

Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, has pleaded not guilty to several felony charges and maintains the two had consensual sexual contact – a misdemeanour considering their ages – but did not have intercourse, which would be a felony.

Carney told jurors Tuesday that emails between the two suggest the girl was a willing participant.

Carney, who minimized the Senior Salute element, read to jurors from a string of emails between the two before and immediately after they got together the night. In them, the freshman agreed to meet Labrie, saying “only if it’s our little secret.”

When questioned about seemingly breezy emails and Facebook exchanges in the hours after their encounter – including messages in which she repeatedly uses “ha ha ha” – the now-16-year-old girl explained, “I didn’t want to show weakness. … I wanted to control a situation where I completely lost control.”

The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

The girl testified Wednesday that when he tried to move lower on her body, she grabbed his head and said, “No, no, no. Keep it up here.” She said she expected “he would respect me.”

She testified Labrie laughed and called her “a tease.”

The teen said she initially declined Labrie’s invitation to participate in the Senior Salute. She said she was familiar with the tradition. She said that she never thought it would involve a sex act and that she was prepared for kissing at most.