Earlier this month, Vice contributor Susan Zalkind spotted convicted sex offender Owen Labrie, 19, on a train in Boston. Labrie, Vice reports, was on the train to visit his girlfriend at Harvard. Zalkind had covered Labrie’s trial; the former student at the prestigious St. Paul’s School became the poster boy for a certain kind of entitlement that can accompany sexual assault. As part of the “Senior Salute,” a tradition that turned sex with underclassmen into a competitive sport, Labrie lured and assaulted a 15-year-old classmate.
Since she had covered Labrie’s trial, Zalkind was eager to speak with him and interviewed Labrie on the train. She tweeted about their conversation, and later produced this piece which describes Labrie as “pathological.” Zalkind’s piece is largely speculative: it’s more of a summary of a general conversation, a series of impressions, rather than an interview with quotes. Zalkind writes:
Strangers have also come up to him and literally thrown blows, he told me, miming a punch to the face.
He talked about emotional “ups and downs” and having his life “torn apart” in the media. It was strange, perhaps, for him to be commiserating with me—arguably one of those responsible for tearing him apart. We only had five stops to go...
But the New York Times reports that the Vice interview may lead to Labrie’s bail being revoked. Prosecutors aren’t upset by the content of the interview so much as the time and location of the interview. In court documents, prosecutors said that Zalkind’s tweets led them to investigate Labrie’s travel habits.
Labrie, who was freed on $15,000 bail pending his appeal, is subject to numerous restrictions, including a 5 p.m. curfew when he must be at his own in Tunbridge, Vermont, which is nearly 150 miles away from Boston. In court documents asking for Labrie’s bail to be revoked, the prosecutors wrote: “[Labrie] has violated a condition of his release by failing to comply with his curfew, traveling outside the parameters of his curfew at least eight times.”
When contacted for comment Labrie’s lawyer, Jaye Rancourt, told the Times that they were “waiting for more information from the state regarding the specific allegations.”
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Image via AP.