Rutgers Students Investigated After Death of Classmate Break Their Silence

[Blue_Tires]

Source: ABC

The two Rutgers University students accused of secretly filming Tyler Clementi in his dorm room just days before he leaped to his death, have broken their silence to insist they did not bully Clementi.

A lawyer for 18-year-old Dharun Ravi, who was roommates with Clementi, issued a statement urging the public not to "rush to charges" against his client.

"Unfortunately, a life has been lost," said attorney Steven Altman in the statement. "Out of respect to Tyler Clementi's family, this is not the time for explanations of defenses or justifications to be made public by an attorney."

"In regards to statements made by the prosecuting agencies of their continuing investigation and whether to file bias charges against Dharun Ravi, I am heartened to hear that they are taking their time to learn all the facts before rushing to judgment. I can only hope that the public will do the same," wrote Altman. "I am confident that nothing will be learned to justify, warrant or support the filing of any bias criminal complaint."

Both Ravi and his alleged accomplice, fellow Rutgers freshman Molly Wei, face several privacy invasion charges after allegedly surreptitiously filming Clementi during a "sexual encounter" in his dorm room with a man and then streaming it live on the Internet. If convicted, Ravi and Wei could each face five years in prison.

In the days since Clementi's body was retrieved from New York's Hudson River, the office of Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan has said it was exploring whether to bring more serious charges charges against Ravi and Wei.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/rutgers-suspect-dhuran-ravi-breaks-silence-tyler-clementi/story?id=11812453

[mbperrin]

1. I hope they spend jail time to consider what invading someone else's

privacy can entail.

Purposefully and with malice aforethought committed this crime. Do the time.

[Zax2me]

3. Yep...

The lawyers can argue hate or not hate crime until they are blue in the face.
What we know - they violated his privacy then published it on the Internet for all to see for their amusement.
I'm still not 100% clear on what role the female student played but the guy that shot the video has to see jail time. If he's smart enough to get into college, he's smart enough to know what he did was a criminal act, to say the least.

[mike_c]

2. well, either they did it or they didn't....

If they did, it's hard to imagine how they can spin their actions as not warranting a complaint.

[Demoiselle]

4. Yeah. Who are we gonna believe, them or our lying eyes?

The video is out there, and whether they prove a hate motivation or not...it's still a crime.

[customerserviceguy]

8. Was the video actually captured?

I hadn't heard that. As I understand it, Ravi only put it out on his iChat account, and unless someone viewing it had some sort of capture software going, then it's lost in the ether, unless there's something on Ravi or Wei's hard drive.

As I further understand things, Clementi (purportedly as cit2mo on the JustUsBoys.com site) posted that all his roommate got was video of him "making out with a guy." A serious invasion of privacy, clearly, but if I understand the term "making out" to mean what it meant when I was eighteen, it implies only affectional activity, and not specifically sexual activity. The NJ statute involving the filming of sexual activity without the permission of at least one of the parties would not be involved here.

My prediction: Neither of the two is going to do prison time, and I doubt that Wei will even get any kind of sentence whatsoever. The evidence linking her to this will likely be flimsy, and in the case of Ravi, the penalty will be no more than he would have gotten if Clementi had not taken his own life.

It was simply wrong in every possible way to have done this, but my prediction is that by the time the dust settles on this, the outcome is going to be pretty unsatisfying for a lot of people who have followed this case.

[LisaL]

10. Clementi posted that TO HIS KNOWLEDGE he didn't think

roommate got more of him than him making out with a guy because of the webcam angle. But it could have been just wishful thinking on his part. At that time Clementi also had no idea that whatever was on the video was also allegedly broadcast.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Until the video actually turns up

Nobody will 'officially' know what's on it, either. Unless there are some credible witnesses from Ravi's Twitter followers who comes forward to testify (if that's even admissible), or a copy is found on a hard drive, it will be pure speculation what the camera covered.

Clementi (if that was him on the advice site, posting) might have figured that the angle was in a place where he was doing nothing more than being affectionate, clearly the next encounter involved multiple webcams including ones aimed at more strategic locations.

Like I said, unless hard evidence surfaces, there's not a lot for a prosecutor to hang his hat on, other than the invasion of privacy against Ravi.

[LisaL]

13. The next encounter involved multiple webcams?

Where exactly did you get that idea?

[customerserviceguy]

14. I remember reading it someplace

but will have to find a source for it. Maybe it was just that the camera was re-aimed at the bed the second time. Will get back to you on that, if I can locate it.

[JI7]

5. i guess you wouldn't say Erin Andrews was bullied, but what that pervert did to her

invading her privacy and taking pics was what these people did to Tyler.

there is too much focus on bullying in this case when it doesn't matter if they had never bullied him before.

what they did in invading his privacy and exposing it to others is horrible in itself and should get years in prison.

[KurtNYC]

6. do Clementi's parents have to wait for the criminal trail to be over

or can they go for the civil trial right away ? I'm just thinking back to Nicole Brown (and OJ).

Ravi is going to spend a lot of money to get insulting statements like "Unfortunately, a life has been lost" made.

[JI7]

9. from what i read his parents bought him a BMW in high school

so hopefully Clementi's family will collect something.

[Blacksheep214]

7. There's no rush to any judgement here!

The twitted statements say it all!

YAY!?

Screw these scumbags! They are guilty of murder!

Jail? NO! Send them to Afghanistan to learn about life as part of a group, not a bunch of elitists who think they are better than everyone unlike them!

Next stop? Boot Camp, Marine Corps style at the PI!

[Canuckistanian]

12. Did anyone say they bullied Clementi?

No - what they did was invade his privacy, mock his sexuality and then BROADCAST the video they took of him.

It was rather more cowardly than bullying. Bullying would actually require face-to-face encounters.

They're scum.

[dugaresa]

15. What Ravi and Wei did was invade his privacy and make a mockery of him

and it was so wrong, so very wrong.

What these two evil cretins should have done was thought a bit more about what they were doing because if they had any logic skills they would know that they were legally stepping down a dangerous path. But nope, their inherent stupidity and bigotry towards Mr. Clementi just screams out.

Nothing they say or do is going to make me think that this was all in fun or that they never intended to bully that poor soul.