Dharun Ravi was just found guilty of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation charges in the New Jersey Rutgers University webcam spying case, and guilty of some of the hate crimes charges. Ravi was acquitted of some of the more serious bias intimidation charges, including bias intimidation because of sexual intimidation against the man who had visited  his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi in his room.
Ravi was accused of spying on his gay roommate, freshman Tyler Clementi, and sharing the video with others, after recording several intimate encounters of Clementi and another man, who was not identified publicly. In 2010, after learning of the spying, Clementi died by suicide, by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.
Ravi was charged not with the death of Clementi but with bias and invasion of privacy. Ravi faces up to ten years in prison.
Ravi faced a total of 15 charges, including four counts of hate crime bias intimidation, two counts of invasion of privacy, two counts of attempted invasion of privacy and six counts of witness tampering and hindering apprehension. He was found guilty of a majority of the charges.
Sentencing will be on May 21, 2012. Ravi is 20 years old, and faces 10 years in jail, and possible deportation as he is not a U.S. citizen. he will remain free on bail, having surrendered his passport.
The APÂ adds:
Clementi’s death was one in a string of suicides by young gays around the country in September 2010. President Barack Obama commented on it, as did talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
New Jersey lawmakers hastened passage of an anti-bullying law because of the case, and Rutgers changed its housing policies to allow opposite-sex roommates in an effort to make gay, bisexual and transgender students feel more comfortable.
Testimony came from about 30 witnesses over 12 days, including the man seen kissing Clementi. The 32-year-old man was identified in court only by the initials M.B. Ravi himself did not testify, though the jury watched a video of his interrogation by police.
Ravi and Clementi, both 18-year-old freshmen from comfortable New Jersey suburbs, had been randomly assigned to room together at Rutgers, and Clementi had arrived at college just a few days after coming out to his parents as gay.
A string of students testified they never heard Ravi say anything bad about gays in general or Clementi in particular. But students did say Ravi expressed some concern about sharing a room with a gay man.
On Sept. 19, according to testimony, Clementi asked Ravi to leave their room so that he could have a guest. Later, Ravi posted on Twitter: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
Ravi told police that he viewed only seconds of the encounter via computer.
His friend Molly Wei testified that she and a few other students also watched the live stream of the men kissing. (Wei was initially charged in the case but was later accepted into a pretrial program that will allow her to keep her record clean.)
Two nights later, Clementi asked for the room alone again. This time, Ravi tweeted: “I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it’s happening again.” Ravi also texted a friend about a planned “viewing party” and, two students said, went to friends’ dorm rooms to show them how to access the feed.
However, there was no evidence the webcam was turned on that night. Ravi told police he had put his computer to sleep. Prosecutors argued Clementi himself unplugged the computer.
According to testimony, Clementi submitted a room-change request form and talked to a resident assistant about what happened. He also used his laptop to view Ravi’s Twitter site 38 times in the last two days of his life. He killed himself on Sept. 22.
The Atlantic Wire adds:
The case became a touchstone in the movement to combat gay bullying, and it’s generated tons of interest in the press, unsurprising as it touches on so many hot topic issues from bullying to privacy and technology to hate crimes.Ian Parker’s must-read New Yorker piece from last month detailed the relationship between the two roommates, revealing an incredibly complex story and demonstrating the difficulty of understanding just what went through either of their heads and how much the role of “bias” actually played in Ravi’s actions.