Owen Labrie, a graduate of New Hampshire's elite St. Paul's School, reported to jail this week to begin serving a 10-month sentence for sexually assaulting his 15-year-old classmate during a senior-year ritual in 2014, when he was 18.Labrie had previously served two months of jail time in 2016 for violating his curfew, but was free the remainder of the time, pending appeals. The now 23-year-old's most recent attempt to appeal his case came just over a week ago, when he appeared in court to ask Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler to shorten his sentence, reportedly insisting that he'd matured and had already served jail time and received an electronic monitor for the curfew violation. Smukler rejected his request, ruling that Labrie's sentence was necessary to bring "justice for the victim," Chessy Prout."Given the crimes and the circumstances, it is just not appropriate to amend the sentence," Smukler said.Labrie managed to escape the most severe charge against him during his criminal trial in 2015, when he was acquitted of felony sexual assault. But a jury still found him guilty of three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault, one felony count of illegal use of computer services, and one misdemeanor count of child endangerment—crimes which required him to register as a sex offender and earned him a year in jail.It wasn't until the following year that Prout came forward as Labrie's long-anonymous victim, expressing disappointment that jurors didn't convict Labrie of felony sexual assault because, according to her, they "didn't believe that he did it knowingly.""That frustrated me a lot because he definitely did do it knowingly, and the fact that he was still able to pull the wool over a group of peoples' eyes bothered me a lot and just disgusted me," Prout said at the time. "I hope he learns; I hope he gets help. Because if he doesn't learn, he will do it to another young woman."Even as Labrie begins serving the remainder of his sentence, his lawyers will try to argue one last outstanding appeal, according to the Associated Press, claiming that the lawyers who represented him in 2015 did a shoddy job at defending him against the charges he's been convicted of.
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For now, Prout and her family are counting Labrie's admittance to jail as a victory for Prout and sexual assault victims everywhere.“Today, the perpetrator who sexually assaulted our then 15-year-old daughter will finally be held accountable for his crime and sent to jail to serve his sentence,” Prout's father, Alex, told ABC News. “To date, he has shown no remorse nor accepted any responsibility for his actions. We hope he never sexually assaults another person in the future.”