Ex-student in webcam case gets 30-day jail
Source: Agencies |
May 22, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A FORMER Rutgers University student who was convicted of hate crimes for using a webcam to view his roommate and another man kissing days before the roommate killed himself will go to jail for 30 days.
A judge gave 20-year-old Dharun Ravi a 30-day jail term and then probation yesterday.
That resolved the latest part of the legal odyssey in an unusual, emotional and tragic case dealing with the consequences of bad decisions by young people in the Internet age.
Judge Glenn Berman of Middlesex County Superior Court in New Brunswik, New Jersey, United States, said he would not recommend Ravi be deported to India, where he was born and remains a citizen.
Clementi, 18, committed suicide in September 2010 after learning that Ravi used a computer-mounted camera to see him kissing an older man in their dorm room and used social media to encourage others to watch.
While not charged with causing Clementi's death, Ravi was vilified for gay bullying and has since been convicted of hate crimes for targeting Clementi and invading his privacy because he was gay.
Advocates for the India-born Ravi had protested the idea that he could be sent to prison for years for what they see as a misguided decision - but one that may not have been linked to Clementi's suicide.
Prosecutors offered Ravi a plea deal that called for no prison time but would have forced him to admit to committing six different crimes. He turned it down.
After a trial that lasted four weeks, Ravi was convicted of all 15 criminal charges he faced, including four counts of the hate crime of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy.
A judge gave 20-year-old Dharun Ravi a 30-day jail term and then probation yesterday.
That resolved the latest part of the legal odyssey in an unusual, emotional and tragic case dealing with the consequences of bad decisions by young people in the Internet age.
Judge Glenn Berman of Middlesex County Superior Court in New Brunswik, New Jersey, United States, said he would not recommend Ravi be deported to India, where he was born and remains a citizen.
Clementi, 18, committed suicide in September 2010 after learning that Ravi used a computer-mounted camera to see him kissing an older man in their dorm room and used social media to encourage others to watch.
While not charged with causing Clementi's death, Ravi was vilified for gay bullying and has since been convicted of hate crimes for targeting Clementi and invading his privacy because he was gay.
Advocates for the India-born Ravi had protested the idea that he could be sent to prison for years for what they see as a misguided decision - but one that may not have been linked to Clementi's suicide.
Prosecutors offered Ravi a plea deal that called for no prison time but would have forced him to admit to committing six different crimes. He turned it down.
After a trial that lasted four weeks, Ravi was convicted of all 15 criminal charges he faced, including four counts of the hate crime of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy.
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