rutger webcam trial

SOMEONE's DEAD and the kid get 30days? teh drunk who killed my car got more!

Former Rutgers student gets 30-day jail sentence in hate crime case


.…A New Jersey judge sentenced a former Rutgers student to 30 days in jail for using a webcam to spy on his roommate kissing another man.

Dharun Ravi, 20, was convicted on two second-degree bias intimidation charges in a case that garnered national headlines because his roommate, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide after the spying.

Clementi, 18, jumped from the George Washington Bridge three days after learning that a September 2010 encounter with an older man was seen by a computer-mounted camera Ravi had set up in their dorm room. The case highlighted the issues of gay bullying and teen suicide.

The judge also placed three years of probation. Rave faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The judge spared the prison time and did not recommend Ravi be deported to India, where he was born and remains a citizen. Ravi was also ordered to get counseling and to pay $10,000 towards a program to help victims of bias crimes.

Judge Glenn Berman said he would not recommend Ravi be deported to India, where he was born and remains a citizen. But Ravi was ordered to get counseling and to pay $10,000 that would go to a program to help victims of bias crimes.

A jury in March convicted Ravi of hate crimes for spying on the encounter through a webcam, and for trying to get others to do the same when the man visited again. Ravi was not charged with causing Clementi's death.

Tyler Clementi's family asked the judge today to sentence Dharun Ravi to prison time.

The Associated Press reported that Clementi's father, Joseph Clementi, told the judge during the sentencing hearing, "One of Tyler's last actions was to check Ravi's Twitter page" and noted that his son checked his roommate's Twitter page 37 times before leaving the Rutgers campus and driving to the bridge where he jumped to his death.

Ravi did not speak during Monday's sentencing hearing.

The lead prosecutor in the case had asked for "a period of imprisonment" in her sentencing brief but according to Reuters did not seek the maximum 10-year sentence. The prosecution team wrote that Ravi "has failed to accept any degree of responsibility for the numerous criminal acts he committed, and shows no remorse for the same, despite significant evidence pointing directly at him."

Ravi's defense attorneys sought probation for Ravi, noting that he has no previous criminal record. The defense team also is appealing the verdict and seeking a new trial.

Before the sentencing, Ravi's parents and Clementi's parents each made appeals.

Ravi's parents attended a rally recently at New Jersey's State House in Trenton of several hundred supporters, many of them Indian or Indian-American, the Associated Press reported. The protesters said that Ravi, an Ultimate Frisbee player and computer whiz, should not have been convicted of hate crimes because he does not hate gay people and that prison is too harsh a punishment for someone who did not mean to hurt anyone, according to the AP.

His mother, Sabitha Ravi, aimed her words at journalists at the rally, saying that those who covered the trial should speak up against her son being sent to prison. "You were quiet there. Why don't you wake up now and bring some justice for Dharun?" she asked in the AP story.

The AP report said Clementi's parents have communicated mostly through written statements or by reading prepared statements after court proceedings. In one, they said they wanted Ravi to be held accountable but that he need not be subject to a "harsh" punishment.




They also told the AP they have started a foundation to honor their son and have talked about how he had come out as gay to them days before he started at Rutgers University.

Agree or not, the law didn't hold him accountable for Tyler Clementi's death. And he wasn't. Maybe he acted like an asshole but he didn't make Clementi jump off a bridge. That was his tragic, misguided decision. Clementi could have been charged with the same crime if he had secretly filmed Ravi having straight sex and posted the vid to make fun of his cocktail weenie sized dick.

true... but he acted with reckless disregard concerning the consequences. people act without thinking we gotta start thinking how we affect others

I think the media is turning this case into a circus.

Forgiveness Man wrote:I think the media is turning this case into a circus.

How so?

Disregard!

captainbryce wrote:Disregard!

Cap, he's already gone on record that he doesn't have to defend any of his rhetoric.

Alan Smithee wrote:Cap, he's already gone on record that he doesn't have to defend any of his rhetoric.

That kind of makes anything he says pointless then doesn't it?

I generally like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Alan Smithee wrote:Agree or not, the law didn't hold him accountable for Tyler Clementi's death. And he wasn't. Maybe he acted like an asshole but he didn't make Clementi jump off a bridge. That was his tragic, misguided decision. Clementi could have been charged with the same crime if he had secretly filmed Ravi having straight sex and posted the vid to make fun of his cocktail weenie sized dick.

Glad someone else realizes it.

I like how you guys spend more posts loudly ignoring a poster than you do on the topic. lol It'd be easier to take your dislike of me more seriously if you didn't seem to be unable to resist making every topic about ME. lol If you have a question, you can ask. And I might answer if I sense it's asked honestly. (And if you don't care what I think, thanks for the rent free space in your posts. )

To Wantstolaugh: Somebody IS dead, by a choice that he himself made. You can't really charge the bully with THAT. He's going to jail for what he did, which is more than can be said for a lot of violent crimes committed. I honestly am not sure what else one can expect.

(Still to wantstolaugh): I think we could prevent tragic suicides like this if we didn't spend so much time glorifying them in the media. We don't care about bully victims until they do something radical anymore. It seems to me that we as a society create the conditions that bullies thrive in, and then when something tragic happens, we try to exploit it for a news story. Society creates these situations, not cause of their views on gays or anything like that (That's actually a popular smokescreen we use to keep it all going), but rather because we essentially have an environment in which bullies rule the day and the only way to fight back is to either go on a shooting spree or kill yourself. (Then the media might latch onto your case and plaster it on every news program for months, cause then you can be a cause for exploitation.) We've created a deadly system for victims of bullying, and we're content to keep it the way it is because it suits our needs as a society. We'll break out the outrage the next time something like this happens, and the next time, and the next time, all the while continuing to pour fuel on the fires that makes things like this happen in the first place. Oh sure, we'll pretend that we're trying to fix it by preaching empty messages of "tolerance" for the groups we feel deserve it, but ultimately, we're just bandaging a pimple while the limbs continue to hemorrhage. Unless we start going after the actual causes of bullying, our society is just as guilty as the bullies themselves. But of course, it's a lot more convenient to just call for the heads of those bullies who wind up on the antagonist side of a media story. It fits so much better.

FM you do have valid points.

30 days does seem a bit "lite". I wouldn't have given him the 10 years he was up for, but I think something like 6 months would have been justified.