Owen Labrie refuses to go down quietly.
With a trial appeal already pending and a request for a new trial filed earlier this week, court officials announced Thursday yet another development in the case against the 20-year-old St. Paul’s School graduate: an appeal of the decision last month to revoke his bail.
Labrie was sent to jail March 18 after he admitted to violating a court-imposed curfew. Prosecutors said he traveled repeatedly to Boston to see a girlfriend; he said he made the trips to meet with attorneys and pursue higher education.
Labrie has asked the state Supreme Court to delay his trial appeal while a lower court takes up his request for a new trial. The justices have yet to rule on that but have granted an expedited process for the revocation appeal, given Labrie’s detention status.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, filed an initial objection Thursday to the new trial request, saying it can only be addressed once the Supreme Court agrees to delay the trial appeal. They have not yet responded substantively to the request.
Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vt., was convicted last summer of having sex with an underage student, a misdemeanor, and of using a computer to lure her into the encounter, a felony that requires lifetime registration as a sex offender.
He now claims his former defense attorneys waited too long to contest the felony charge and says they should have been pressing for more exhaustive juror instructions on it, among other things.
Labrie’s trial team, led by high-profile defender J.W. Carney, argued after the convictions that Labrie’s use of a computer fell outside the intent of the criminal statute, which they said was to target pedophiles using the internet in search of underage victims. Labrie, they countered, merely used email and Facebook to schedule a date with a fellow student whom he already knew.
The victim was 15 at the time, below the state’s legal age of consent. She said at trial that she agreed to Labrie’s initial advances but tried to stop him when he pushed for intercourse, telling him no three times. She said she felt overpowered by Labrie, a popular senior who planned to attend Harvard that fall.
Labrie is being held under “special management” at the jail, according to Superintendent Ross Cunningham. He said Labrie gets about four hours of recreation time with other inmates each day, and spends the rest alone in a cell, with access to books and other basic amenities.
Cunningham said the status is typical for high-profile inmates, and it is for Labrie’s protection. There have been no disciplinary issues, he said.
(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.)