Here's a news update on this case:
Reuters - Fri Feb 24, 2012

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-crime-rutgers-idUSTRE81N1HE\
20120224
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-crime-rutgers-idUSTRE81N1H\
E20120224>

and here's Hindustan Times reporting it:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/816758.aspx
<http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/816758.aspx#>
Press Trust Of India
New York, February 25, 2012First Published: 09:16 IST(25/2/2012)
Last Updated: 09:19 IST(25/2/2012)Rutgers web spying trial: 'Indian
student immature'The lawyer for an Indian student accused of spying on
his roommate's homosexual tryst on Friday said his client acted in a
"childish and immature" manner but prosecutors countered saying his acts
were "mean spirited and criminal", and aimed at exposing his fellow
freshman as gay.




The trial of 19-year-old Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers University
student, began in New Brunswick, New Jersey near New York, with both
sides making their opening statements.

Ravi has pleaded not guilty to charges of bias intimidation and invasion
of privacy of his roommate Tyler Clementi, 18. He had used a webcam to
spy on Clementi, who later jumped to his death from the George
Washington bridge in September 2010.

The most serious count against him is bias intimidation, a hate crime,
which carries a potential sentence of 10 years in prison. If convicted,
Ravi could also face deportation to India.

Ravi's lawyer Steven Altman told the court his client had no intentions
of intimidating Clementi and neither did he have any dislike for gays.

"We do stupid things, we make mistakes, especially when we're young
— it doesn't mean we're hateful, we're bigoted or we're criminal,"
Altman said.

"In fact, Dharun never intimidated anyone. He never committed a hateful
crime. He's not homophobic. He's not anti-gay."

Altman stressed that Ravi was a young person just out of high school and
is "a boy, childish, at times immature. He was 18."

Closing his 30-minute opening statement, Altman said Ravi is "not
hateful. He's not a bigot. At 18, he didn't have enough experience in
life to know about being gay or homosexuality. When we get done here,
you are going to see he might be stupid at times, he is certainly not a
criminal."

Prosecutors, however, countered saying Ravi acted on purpose and wanted
to "brand Tyler as different from everybody else... as gay to set him up
for contempt.

"The defendant's acts were not a prank, they were not an accident and
they were not a mistake," first assistant prosecutor for Middlesex
County Julia McClure told the jury in her opening statement.

"These acts were purposeful, they were intentional and they were
planned. They were mean-spirited, they were malicious, and they were
criminal. Those acts were meant to cross one of the most sacred
boundaries of human privacy, engaging in private sexual human activity."

McClure said Ravi's conduct is not about him having to like his
roommate's sexual orientation.

"This is about Dharun Ravi having the decency to respect it and to
respect Tyler's dignity and privacy and the defendant did not do that."

Altman argued that the spying through the webcam lasted just two to five
seconds, and it showed nothing more than two men kissing.

"Nobody ever broadcast anything. Nobody transmitted anything. Nobody
recorded anything. Nobody reproduced any image of anything," Altman
said.

"Nothing."

Altman stressed Ravi never harassed or ridiculed his roommate, and nor
did he say "anything bad" about Clementi. He added that Ravi thought
Clementi was a "nice guy. He never had a problem with him."
Deep

--- In gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com, "vgd67" <vgd67@...> wrote:>
> An absolutely must read story from the New Yorker that goes in depth
into the tragic story of Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi:
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/06/120206fa_fact_parker
>
> People may remember this story from about a year and a half back.
Tyler Clementi was a freshman student at Rutgers in New Jersey who was
sharing a room with another freshman Dharun Ravi. Ravi discovered that
Clementi was gay and when he requested use of their room to have sex
with another guy, Ravi set up his webcam to capture them and tweeted
about it like it was a joke. Clementi found out and committed suicide.
>
> The story provoked huge sorrow and outrage at what people saw was
misuse of techonology by uncaring and unfeeling young people to out
someone closeted. As it happened the suicide happened just when Dan
Savage was launching his It Gets Better video campaign aimed at
persuading gay kids not to commit suicide, and the campaign got a huge
boost from this.
>
> Ian Parker from the New Yorker goes into the story to show that it was
a bit more complex than it seemed, though none the less tragic. Clementi
wasn't quite closeted, but he was socially awkward and shy, especially
compared to the much more outgoing and confident Ravi. But Ravi wasn't
entirely the homophobic jock he was made out to be, though certainly
rather stupidly unthinking and brash.
>
> At the time there was also something of a racial subtext to the story
since Ravi, and the friend he roped into this, were both fairly
privileged Asian 'model minority' kids, while Clementi was from a not
that well off white family. Again here Parker shows that this was a
simplification, though some class angle probably did play in - he shows
that Ravi had a rather ugly prejudice against 'poor' people. (Ravi,
incidentally, has Indian citizenship, so one reason why he is refusing
to accept a guilty plea bargain is probably because that would lead to
deportation).
>
> But overall what comes out of this story is how shockingly normal so
much of it us, but also how normality can so easily spin out of control.
You can easily identify with Clementi, the shy gay boy who struggled to
make friends (though, interestingly, he seems to have been more sexually
confident than Ravi).
>
> But you can, if not exactly identify, you can see where someone like
Ravi is coming from - confident, brash, self centred, but also young and
with so much to learn. Can everyone here say unequivocally they were
never in a position where they bullied someone a bit? I can remember I
was and I'm not proud of it, but I grew out of it without, I hope,
causing much harm. Ravi wasn't so lucky.
>
> All this really makes the story worth reading, and I'm curious what
people feel about it. Where do your sympathies lie - obviously with
Clementi, but is any due at all for Ravi? What sort of punishment would
be fit? And what does the story say about the role technology now plays
in our lives?
>
> Vikram
>

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