 CONCORD — St. Paul’s School sex-trial convict Owen Labrie won a second chance at freedom Monday, when a judge said he can be released on bail while his lawyers challenge his conviction.Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler said Labrie, 20, can get out of jail once he is fitted with an electronic monitor that is tracked via GPS. Merrimack County officials said that will likely take place between Wednesday and Friday.“It’s clear that Mr. Labrie did break the trust of the court,” Smukler said. Labrie was convicted last October of sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child and prohibited use of a computer and released on $15,000 bail while he appealed on the conditions that he live at his mother’s Tunbridge, Vermont, home and abide by a 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew. The case went public when a reporter wrote about seeing him in March on an MBTA train, where Labrie said he was visiting his girlfriend in college.“Our concern is the safety of the community,” said Merrimack County prosecutor Catherine Ruffles.
– Owen Labrie, the prep school graduate found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate, has been given another shot at remaining free while he appeals the verdict, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports. The 20-year-old, whose bail was revoked two months ago when authorities discovered he had repeatedly violated his curfew, will be freed on bail again after he's fitted with a GPS monitor this week, reports the Boston Herald. Labrie's lawyer, Jaye Rancourt, says he has been frightened and sad during his time in prison, most of which was spent on administrative segregation, and he plans to abide by bail conditions, including living at his mother's home in Vermont under a 5pm to 8am curfew. After his conviction last year, Labrie was sentenced to a year in jail. Rancourt says Labrie will be working in manual labor while out on bail. The curfew violations that sent him to jail were exposed by a reporter he chatted to on a train. "I think a regular person wouldn't have had his bail revoked," Rancourt says. "I think he's been under intense scrutiny and probably treated more strictly than some." At Monday's hearing, Rancourt told the judge that jail time had been a "life-changing" experience for Labrie, though a state prosecutor argued that the only real change is that Labrie has discovered he doesn't like jail, reports WCVB. (Labrie's arrest and trial exposed the "Senior Salute" tradition of sexual conquest at the elite St. Paul's school in New Hampshire.)