Rutgers freshman suicide after roommate broadcast gay sexual encounter online?

[jAZ]

Wow. Prank gone waaay wrong.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/201...gers_post.html

Rutgers freshman is presumed dead in suicide after roommate broadcast gay sexual encounter online

Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 5:42 PM
Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger



PISCATAWAY — A Rutgers University freshman appears to have killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate broadcast live images of the 18-year-old having a sexual encounter with another man on the internet, according to campus and law enforcement sources.

Tyler Clementi, 18, of Ridgewood, is presumed dead after his car, cell phone and computer were found near the George Washington Bridge last week, law enforcement sources said. His wallet was found on the walkway adjacent to the New York-bound lanes. In a statement released this afternoon, Clementi’s family confirmed the suicide and said his body has not been found.

Dharun Ravi, 18, of Plainsboro, and Molly Wei, 18, of Princeton, were charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy for setting up a camera in a dorm room on Sept. 19 and using it to view and transmit a live sex scene, said Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan.

Paul Mainardi of Woodbury, the Clementi family's attorney, said Ravi and Clementi were roommates at Rutgers.

Ravi's Twitter feed on that date referred to seeing his roommate have sex with another man in their room on the Piscataway campus, classmates said.

"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 said on his Twitter page in a Sept. 19 entry posted at 6:17 p.m.

Two days later, Ravi posted another entry directing his nearly 150 Twitter followers to iChat, an internet messaging service with a live video feed.

"Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again," Ravi wrote in the Sept. 21 post.

Ravi's Twitter feed has since been taken down. But the entries survived in a cached version of the page still available through Google's search engine this afternoon.

Prosecutors said Ravi and Wei set up a camera on Sept. 19 and broadcast live images of Clementi having a "sexual encounter." Ravi is also accused of trying unsuccessfully to broadcast a second sex scene Sept. 21.

The Clementi family released a statement this afternoon. "Tyler was a fine young man, and a distinguished musician. The family is heartbroken beyond words. They respectfully request that they be given time to grieve their great loss and that their privacy at this painful time be respected by all," it said.

"The family and their representatives are cooperating fully with the ongoing criminal investigations of two Rutgers University students," the statement said.

Clementi was an accomplished violinist who had received a college scholarship from the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra for his musicianship and leadership.
The violinist left a lasting impression with some in the Bergen County town, said Hiro Kagei, 17, who played in the orchestra with the teenager. A solo Clementi played in a concert last year "blew the audience away," he said.

"Now that he’ dead, it’s sad to think we won’t hear something like that anymore," Kagei said.

On the Rutgers campus, classmates described Clementi as quiet. At a mandatory dorm meeting called the day he was reported missing, only three students said they had spoken to Clementi since they moved into the dorm last month, according to students who were at the meeting.

Ravi and Wei — who were classmates at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North before enrolling at Rutgers this fall — did not respond to e-mail requests to comment Tuesday. Steve Altman, Ravi’s attorney, also declined to comment.

Ravi surrendered to Rutgers police Tuesday and was released on $25,000 bail, the prosecutor’s office said. Wei surrendered to the campus police Monday and was released on her own recognizance.

Under New Jersey’s invasion-of-privacy laws, it is a fourth degree crime to collect or view images depicting nudity or sexual contact involving another individual without that person’s consent, the prosecutor said. It is a third degree crime to transmit or distribute the images.

If the students are convicted on a third degree offense they could face up to five years in prison each under state law. Conviction on a fourth-degree crime could lead to probation or up to 18 months in prison.

[johnny961]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I just don't see a way around giving these kids the maximum allowable punishment.

I agree with alot of your arguments. That being said, doesn't a persons past criminal record play a role in the sentencing? I mean, wouldn't a judge be more apt to go light on both of these kids if both had clean criminal records before this incident, as opposed to two kids with a history of law violations? I haven't been following this story closely, don't know alot of the facts, not trying to diss you. And I'm not a judge or a lawyer. I just thought I'd throw this out there. That may be their only hope for leniency.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Okay, so I'll ask again - how much worse can an invasion of privacy be?

I've tried to subtract the results from this. I've tried to focus solely on the conduct and apply it to the law.

If a crime is punishable by up to 5 years and a party violates that crime both in a pre-meditated fashion and in a manner designed expressly to create the type of harm that the statute seeks to avoid, how can you avoid giving the maximum sentence?

I cannot come up with a more brazen, mean-spirited, pre-meditate, intentional violation of an invasion of privacy law than this one, apart from involving minors (which would be under a different scheme) or the threat of violence (which would be punishable under a separate count).

No pitchforks, no mob mentality. This was a textbook and severe violation of a statute punishable by 5 years. How do you not give it to them apart from using your emotion. While accusing others of getting overly emotional in this, you're ignoring the fact that it's your emotion and concern over seeing a young kid ruin his life that has you seeking the lesser penalty.

If this was a 60 year old homeless guy, I doubt you'd defend him so vociferously.

It's an emotionally charged issue. But if you take emotion out of it on both sides and look at it from a purely technical standpoint, the guy earned the maximum penalty allowed by law.

You're right that if the accused was a 60 year old man, I'd have less sympathy. At that point in your life, you're supposed to be beyond your youthful indiscretions. These two were freshmen in college. They've barely reached the age of majority. It's not like they decided to rob a bank or mug someone or even drive drunk or something else that they would certainly understand to be against the law.

I guess that our main point of difficulty here is that you're out for revenge and I'm more interested in salvaging a couple of lives of people who most likely had no intention of doing anything that would lead to someone jumping off a bridge.

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Exactly. No way in hell a judge or jury effectively ends these two kid's lives for a prank gone wrong. No way in hell.

Erin Andrews' peephole guy got sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. How are these circumstances different and why should these two receive a lower sentence?

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

A) The sentence isn't being enhanced.

When the range of possible sentences is 0 to 5 years and you want to peg it at 5, you're enhancing it. I've read your rationalizations where you try to claim that you're ignoring the kid's suicide, but I don't believe them.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

Erin Andrews' peephole guy got sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. How are these circumstances different and why should these two receive a lower sentence?

IMHO there is a discernible difference between a grown man who stalks a woman across several states to make multiple videos of her over a period of time and two young college kids who pulled a prank that ended badly.
If the kid hadn't killed himself I highly doubt anyone would be so up in arms.

[Zaiko]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

Erin Andrews' peephole guy got sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. How are these circumstances different and why should these two receive a lower sentence?

Exactly. Except I think it's state laws that are applicable here, and each has it's own for these cases.

That said, it's textbook based on the law given. Still don't see how this is much of an argument. I will disagree on DJ with fullest extent.. but as I said, they need at LEAST a few months. You want to scare them, but 5 years might just make them bitter and make them hard criminals. Not sure that's what's needed here.

Few months with lots of community service and classes. Something that would punish the hell out of them, but not turn them into something worse. The idea behind prison I think is to rehabilitate people into being functioning, decent members of society.. not to make them worse than they are.

[Zaiko]

Originally Posted by vailpass

IMHO there is a discernible difference between a grown man who stalks a woman across several states to make multiple videos of her over a period of time and two young college kids who pulled a prank that ended badly.
If the kid hadn't killed himself I highly doubt anyone would be so up in arms.

Prank is a bad word. It's normally used way more lightly than what it was here..

This is far more than a prank. A prank isn't telling someone they have privacy, videotaping them having sex, then spreading it around making fun of them.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by johnny961

I agree with alot of your arguments. That being said, doesn't a persons past criminal record play a role in the sentencing? I mean, wouldn't a judge be more apt to go light on both of these kids if both had clean criminal records before this incident, as opposed to two kids with a history of law violations? I haven't been following this story closely, don't know alot of the facts, not trying to diss you. And I'm not a judge or a lawyer. I just thought I'd throw this out there. That may be their only hope for leniency.

As I'm only going off the prosecutors statement, I can't speak directly to this. However, if a statute has language allowing for the consideration of prior offenses, I have to believe that would've been taken into account already. It's usually codified somehow.

In other words, if there is an enhancer for a previous offense that allows for, say, 10 years in jail, then the prosecutor would've said it was punishable by 1o years rather than 5.

I believe in stating that this is a crime punishable by 5 years, the prosecutor is saying that this is the allowable penalty for a first time offense.

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by vailpass

IMHO there is a discernible difference between a grown man who stalks a woman across several states to make multiple videos of her over a period of time and two young college kids who pulled a prank that ended badly.
If the kid hadn't killed himself I highly doubt anyone would be so up in arms.

Uh, if my roommate unknowingly taped me having sex, especially after I told him not to, I'd be ****ing pissed and absolutely up in arms.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by patteeu

When the range of possible sentences is 0 to 5 years and you want to peg it at 5, you're enhancing it. I've read your rationalizations where you try to claim that you're ignoring the kid's suicide, but I don't believe them.

Naive question to you or any other lawyers in this discussion:

If there were multiple fouls, is there an interplay on sentencing? So from a legal perspective, would a drunk driver get a more harsh sentence for the drunk driving crime if he killed someone? Or would he get the same sentence, but then he also gets an independent sentence for manslaughter? I'm going to guess that each crime is independent, but I vaguely recall hearing news blips about sentences for "X crime resulting in Y outcome".

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by patteeu

When the range of possible sentences is 0 to 5 years and you want to peg it at 5, you're enhancing it. I've read your rationalizations where you try to claim that you're ignoring the kid's suicide, but I don't believe them.

I'm not. I'm personally absolutely considered the kid's suicide. Like I said earlier - our entire jurisprudence is based on results.

But I'm also trying to look at it from a purely technical aspect. Admittedly, I have the result I'd want and am therefore going to work backwards to achieve it, but at the same time, this is clearly an extraordinarily egregious violation of privacy.

Even if you don't think it's punishable by 5 years, I don't see how anyone can say it's not a felony and it doesn't deserve jail time. If that's the case, then just take the damn statute off the books because if you're going to put this on a staggered scale, it's a hell of a lot closer to the 5 year side than the Class C Misdemeanor side for all the reasons I've already stated.

As I stated with vailpass, it's my attempt to take a completely different approach to considering the sentencing but from where I sit, the results should be the same. I'm not without my biases, but that certainly doesn't prevent me from stating the case as I see it.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Zaiko

Prank is a bad word. It's normally used way more lightly than what it was here..

This is far more than a prank. A prank isn't telling someone they have privacy, videotaping them having sex, then spreading it around making fun of them.

It's an assault.

Bouillon cubes in the shower head is a prank. Taping the clicker on the phone down so you can't answer it is a prank.

This wasn't. But calling it a prank goes much better with the 'poor immature college kid' narrative.

These were malicious teens that assaulted a weakling. Nothing more, nothing less.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

Erin Andrews' peephole guy got sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. How are these circumstances different and why should these two receive a lower sentence?

And I believe the peephole guy got a federal sentence so there's no possibility of parole.

Give the kid a 5 year prison sentence in a state court and he'll be out on parole within 18 months.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Naive question to you or any other lawyers in this discussion:

If there were multiple fouls, is there an interplay on sentencing? So from a legal perspective, would a drunk driver get a more harsh sentence for the drunk driving crime if he killed someone? Or would he get the same sentence, but then he also gets an independent sentence for manslaughter? I'm going to guess that each crime is independent, but I vaguely recall hearing news blips about sentences for "X crime resulting in Y outcome".

You don't convict twice for a lesser included offense.

If an offense requires the occurrence of A, B, C and D; you cannot convict of both that crime, and another crime that requires the occurrence of A, B and C. It's part of the double jeopardy prohibitions.

You can charge for both (it's a common tactic for negotiating plea deal; armed criminal action within armed robbery, for example), but you can't convict for both.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

You don't convict twice for a lesser included offense.

If an offense requires the occurrence of A, B, C and D; you cannot convict of both that crime, and another crime that requires the occurrence of A, B and C. It's part of the double jeopardy prohibitions.

You can charge for both (it's a common tactic for negotiating plea deal; armed criminal action within armed robbery, for example), but you can't convict for both.

Thanks. I'm not sure I understand, though, so maybe I can get an example.


Person A is driving drunk and gets arrested because he's weaving on the road.

Person B is driving drunk and gets arrested because he hit another car and killed the driver of that car.

Assume that neither has a previous criminal record and everything else was the same other than the fact that Person B crashed.

In this fictional location, the penalty for driving drunk is 1 to 3 years in prison. The penalty for manslaughter or murder or whatever killed the innocent driver is 20 years.

If Person A gets 1 year in prison for DUI, should Person B get the same, and then another 10 years for manslaughter or whatever? Or is it reasonable that Person B would get 3 years plus the 10 years because his drunk driving had a worse outcome?