guilty of a hate crime
On Mar 16, 11:08 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dharun Ravi Found Guilty of Invasion of Privacy, Bias Intimidation in
> Suicide of Tyler Clementi
>
> Defendant Guilty in Rutgers Case
>
> Matt Rainey for The New York Times
> Dharun Ravi, center, and his lawyers, Philip Nettl, left, and Steven
> Altman at Superior Court in Middlesex County, N.J., on Friday.
>
> By KATE ZERNIKE
> Published: March 16, 2012
>
> NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. —A jury convicted a former Rutgers University
> student, Dharun Ravi, of hate crimes for using a webcam to spy on his
> roommate kissing another man in their dorm room.
>
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> The jury also found Mr. Ravi guilty of tampering with evidence and
> witnesses for trying to change Twitter and text messages in which he
> had encouraged others to watch the webcam.
>
> Mr. Ravi's roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the
> George Washington Bridge three days after Mr. Ravi viewed him on the
> webcam. The case became a symbol of the struggles facing gay, lesbian
> and bisexual teenagers and the problem of cyberbullying in an era when
> laws governing hate crimes have not kept up with evolving technology.
>
> Mr. Ravi looked down but did not seem to react as the jury forewoman
> read the verdict. Mr. Clementi's parents and family sat with arms
> around each other, leaning forward as they listened to the forewoman
> speak.
>
> Mr. Ravi, 20, was not charged in Mr. Clementi's death. .
>
> The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for about two days,
> following more than three weeks of testimony.
>
> The case was rare because almost none of the facts were in dispute.
> Mr. Ravi's lawyers agreed that he had set up a webcam on his computer,
> then gone into a friend's room and viewed Mr. Clementi kissing a man
> he had invited to his room three weeks after arriving at Rutgers in
> September 2010. Mr. Ravi sent Twitter and text messages telling others
> what he had seen, and urged them to watch a second viewing, then
> deleted messages after Mr. Clementi killed himself.
>
> That account had been established by a long trail of electronic
> evidence — from Twitter feeds and cellphone records, dormitory
> surveillance cameras, dining hall swipe cards and a "netflow" analysis
> showing when and how computers in the dormitory connected.
>
> What the jury had to decide, and what set off debate outside as well
> as inside the courtroom, was what Mr. Ravi and Mr. Clementi were
> thinking at the time.
>
> Did Mr. Ravi set up the webcam because he had a pretty good idea that
> he would see Mr. Clementi in an intimate moment? Did he target Mr.
> Clementi and the man he was with because they were gay? And was Mr.
> Clementi in fear?
>
> Without Mr. Clementi to speak for himself, that last question was
> perhaps the most difficult to determine, and questions the jurors sent
> from their deliberation room suggested they struggled with it.
>
> The prosecution had pointed out that Mr. Clementi had checked Mr.
> Ravi's Twitter feed — where Mr. Ravi told others he had seen his
> roommate "kissing a dude" — 38 times in the days after the first
> webcam viewing. Records showed that Mr. Clementi had gone online to
> request a room change, and a resident assistant testified that Mr.
> Clementi had complained to him.
>
> But the defense argued that if Mr. Clementi had felt intimidated, he
> would have accepted when the resident assistant offered him another
> place to stay, and he would not have invited his boyfriend back to the
> room.
>
> Mr. Clementi's suicide came up only in passing during the trial, when
> a lawyer asked the boyfriend how he had learned of Mr. Clementi's
> death. The man, who testified under tight cover and was identified in
> court only as M.B. because he was considered a victim in the case,
> testified that he had read about it in a newspaper, as the suicide
> prompted international attention.
>
> Still, the death defined the trial, turning what might have been a
> peeping Tom case or, as the resident assistant said, "a roommate
> issue" into something far more grave.
>
> Mr. Clementi's parents, brothers and a huddle of friends sat on one
> side of the courtroom. On the other sat Mr. Ravi's parents, who
> brought him here from India when he was young, and their friends,
> including several who had served as character witnesses for Mr. Ravi,
> testifying he was not biased against gays.
>
> The testimony painted a picture of two college freshman, both from top
> performing high schools in well-off suburbs, who could not have been
> more different. Mr. Clementi was shy and reserved, an accomplished
> violinist who had only recently told his parents he was gay. Mr. Ravi
> was a boastful computer wizard and ultimate Frisbee player who
> communicated with friends constantly via Twitter, text message and
> iChat.
>
> Mr. Ravi's lawyers argued that he was "a kid" with little experience
> of homosexuality who had stumbled into a situation that scared him.
> M.B., who was 30 at the time, had made him nervous, the lawyers
> argued, so he set up his webcam to keep an eye on his belongings. Mr.
> Ravi, they argued, was being sarcastic when he had sent messages
> daring friends to connect to his webcam, or declaring that he was
> having a "viewing party."
>
> But prosecutors argued that his frequent messages mentioning Mr.
> Clementi's sexuality proved that Mr. Ravi was upset about having a gay
> roommate from the minute he discovered it through a computer search
> several weeks before they arrived at Rutgers in fall 2010.
>
> More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/nyregion/defendant-guilty-in-rutger...
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
--
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