Breaking: Dharun Ravi, Who Secretly Recorded Tyler Clementi, Has Anti-Gay Bias Conviction Overturned

Anti-Gay Bullying Case Drew National Attention

Dharun Ravi has already completed the 30-day jail sentence (he won early release, and served only 20 days) he received four years ago in a case that drew nationwide attention, but Friday morning that conviction was overturned by a New Jersey appeals court. Ravi was convicted on several bias intimidation charges after he secretly recorded his Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi, in an intimate encounter with a man. Clementi, several days later, in September of 2010 took his life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

“The State used evidence revealing the victim’s reserved demeanor and expressions of shame and humiliation as a counterweight to defendant’s cavalier indifference and unabashed insensitivity to his roommate’s right to privacy and dignity,” NJ.com reports the appellate court’s ruling reads. “The prosecutor aggressively pressed this point to the jury in her eloquent closing argument.”

“It is unreasonable to expect a rational juror to remain unaffected by this evidence,” the ruling concludes.

The court called for a new trial, but prosecutors can also appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. 

In March of 2012 Ravi was found guilty of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation charges. Ravi had been 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. He originally faced 15 charges which could have put him in jail for ten years. 

In May of 2012 Ravi was handed a mere 30-day sentence.

The following month a poll found 51 percent of New Jersey residents believed his 30-day sentence was “too lenient.”

This 2012 ABC News report details the conviction:

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