Lawyers Ask Judge To Set Aside Prep School Grad's Conviction

Lawyers for a New Hampshire prep school graduate convicted of having sexual contact with a 15-year-old student want a judge to either dismiss a felony conviction for using a computer to invite the girl to their encounter or keep him off a list of registered sex offenders.

Nineteen-year-old Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, was convicted last month after a trial full of lurid details that exposed a practice at the elite St. Paul's School known as Senior Salute, in which graduating students try to have sex with younger classmates.

In a motion filed Friday, lawyers said the computer crime should be dismissed because Labrie was acquitted of felony sex assault. They say the law was designed to apply to adults preying on children, not to teenagers who knew each other.