NEW HAMPSHIRE
New York Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
AUG. 30, 2016
A student at an elite prep school in New Hampshire who accused a senior of rape in 2014 only to see him convicted of misdemeanor charges revealed her identity on Tuesday in an interview with NBC, saying that she hoped to support other victims by discussing the difficulties she has faced, including being shunned when she returned to the school.
“I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,” the teenager, Chessy Prout, who was 15 at the time of the assault at St. Paul’s School in Concord, said on the “Today” show.
“It’s been two years now since the whole ordeal, and I feel ready to stand up and own what happened to me and make sure other people, other girls and boys, don’t need to be ashamed, either,” Ms. Prout said with her parents at her side.
Ms. Prout said she was attacked in a mechanical room at the school in May 2014. In the trial that ended in August 2015, Owen Labrie, a senior, was cleared of felony sexual assault charges but convicted of misdemeanor charges, including having sex with someone below the age of consent.
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