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.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Zaiko

Or manslaughter.. Yet people insist talking about the kid who died, only because the national media is.

What they were charged with does not require that the kid did anything more or less than go home and cry himself to sleep.

This is an irrelevant point.

[Zaiko]

Originally Posted by patteeu

This is an irrelevant point.

What's irrelevant and how?

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

The court doesn't have jurisdiction to throw the kid out of school. That's a university issue, state school or no.

Death wasn't foreseeable, but wouldn't clinical depression be? And clinical depression surely isn't something to disregard.

You continue to trivialize what they did to this kid and the raw malice behind it. They weren't trying to be funny, they never thought he was going to laugh this off. They were trying to cause this kid at least some degree of emotional or psychological harm. Mission accomplished.

So if you're going to use a purely emotion barometer like "look at how much this would damage these intelligent young people's future", I don't see how you can disregard the inverse of that emotional barometer "look at the damage their malicous behavior caused". It's pure emotion one way or the other so why is one worth considering and the other not?

It's not emotional to choose the path that seems most likely to balance turning these kids into productive citizens with teaching a lesson so that this isn't as likely to happen again. Your path is all about retribution and sending a clear message. There's no balance at all. I don't think retribution should be the goal here, especially if the motivating factor is avenging the death of the suicide.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

or two cheerleaders in a bathroom.

Yes, there is a hypocritical nature to this. It is what it is.

Sue the **** out them for invasion of privacy.

I don't know much about this but it appears that's the case.

I'm cool with that.

I'm also cool with pointing out that the guy decided to off himself, and if he doesn't believe he's worth fighting for....well......I probably shouldn't either.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Zaiko

What's irrelevant and how?

No one is arguing that the kids were improperly charged with murder or manslaughter.

[vailpass]

Some of you are real hard asses. This is nothing more than a couple of college kids who pulled a prank and it went wrong.
Like shaving a guy's eyebrows and painting his face with lipstick and shaving cream after he passes out.
Or taking pictures of guys hanging brain on a passed out girl.
Or posting photoshopped pics of dudes making out with other dudes or girls with porn star private parts photoshopped onto their faces.
Or any number of other pranks that occur on college campuses across the world every day of the year.
If dude hadn't committed suicide this wouldn't be more than a blip on the radar screen.

[Zaiko]

Originally Posted by patteeu

No one is arguing that the kids were improperly charged with murder or manslaughter.

I didn't say they were? I've responded a lot in this thread and I was responding to DaKC originally here.

Simply trying to reinforce the fact that the crime they are charged with as written doesn't have anything to do with the kid suiciding. Everything they did was textbook with malicious intent, but I've already said all that, and so has DJ.

[Zaiko]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Some of you are real hard asses. This is nothing more than a couple of college kids who pulled a prank and it went wrong.
Like shaving a guy's eyebrows and painting his face with lipstick and shaving cream after he passes out.
Or taking pictures of guys hanging brain on a passed out girl.
Or posting photoshopped pics of dudes making out with other dudes or girls with porn star private parts photoshopped onto their faces.
Or any number of other pranks that occur on college campuses across the world every day of the year.
If dude hadn't committed suicide this wouldn't be more than a blip on the radar screen.

I don't see how you believe it's nothing more than a prank after how many pages now?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by patteeu

It's not emotional to choose the path that seems most likely to balance turning these kids into productive citizens with teaching a lesson so that this isn't as likely to happen again. Your path is all about retribution and sending a clear message. There's no balance at all. I don't think retribution should be the goal here, especially if the motivating factor is avenging the death of the suicide.

Where's the balance there?

Community service is going to stop them from doing it again? No, the public scorn is going to stop them from doing it again. I'm pretty sure dickweed isn't going to be torturing anymore gay kids anytime soon.

So hell, let's just let them skate altogether. Then you'll certainly end up with productive citizens and they're no more or less likely to commit this act again.

Your approach seems to give zero weight to the retributive aspect of this. You seem concerned only with deterrance and rehabilitation when really, nothing the court will do here will anything more to deter or rehab these kids than has already happened.

The court's sole purpose here is retribution. They need to be punished for their conduct. A malicious, pre-meditated attack on a weakling deserves jail time. Even had he not killed himself, this would've had far greater long-term ramifications on his person than had they just shoved his ass down the stairs when he wasn't looking. Surely anyone will admit that would deserve jail time.

Call this thing what it is - an assault - and there's no way around sending them to jail for it. It's easy to say this was a prank gone awry so they should get off light, but it's also wrong. It was pre-mediated attack on a kid they knew wouldn't fight back.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Zaiko

I don't see how you believe it's nothing more than a prank after how many pages now?

What does the number of pages in a post have to do with anything?
Are you retarted or just and idiot? Friggin n00b.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Zaiko

I didn't say they were? I've responded a lot in this thread and I was responding to DaKC originally here.

Simply trying to reinforce the fact that the crime they are charged with as written doesn't have anything to do with the kid suiciding. Everything they did was textbook with malicious intent, but I've already said all that, and so has DJ.

Again, this is an irrelevant point. It doesn't become more relevant with repetition.

[Chiefnj2]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

It was pre-mediated attack on a kid they knew wouldn't fight back.

It was a prank where they saw the kid kissing someone.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Some of you are real hard asses. This is nothing more than a couple of college kids who pulled a prank and it went wrong.
Like shaving a guy's eyebrows and painting his face with lipstick and shaving cream after he passes out.
Or taking pictures of guys hanging brain on a passed out girl.
Or posting photoshopped pics of dudes making out with other dudes or girls with porn star private parts photoshopped onto their faces.
Or any number of other pranks that occur on college campuses across the world every day of the year.
If dude hadn't committed suicide this wouldn't be more than a blip on the radar screen.

Prank - "a mischievous trick or joke, esp one in which something is done rather than said"

You think this was intended to be a joke?

The hell it was. This was designed to torment and torture the quiet kid.

There's no fine line to walk here. This is no more a prank than mercilessly mocking a fat kid in a lunch line.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Where's the balance there?

Community service is going to stop them from doing it again? No, the public scorn is going to stop them from doing it again. I'm pretty sure dickweed isn't going to be torturing anymore gay kids anytime soon.

So hell, let's just let them skate altogether. Then you'll certainly end up with productive citizens and they're no more or less likely to commit this act again.

Your approach seems to give zero weight to the retributive aspect of this. You seem concerned only with deterrance and rehabilitation when really, nothing the court will do here will anything more to deter or rehab these kids than has already happened.

The court's sole purpose here is retribution. They need to be punished for their conduct. A malicious, pre-meditated attack on a weakling deserves jail time. Even had he not killed himself, this would've had far greater long-term ramifications on his person than had they just shoved his ass down the stairs when he wasn't looking. Surely anyone will admit that would deserve jail time.

Call this thing what it is - an assault - and there's no way around sending them to jail for it. It's easy to say this was a prank gone awry so they should get off light, but it's also wrong. It was pre-mediated attack on a kid they knew wouldn't fight back.

I see no value in retribution here and you do. That's why I concluded in post 446 that we'd have to agree to disagree. I'm not going to convince you to give up your jones for retribution and you're not going to convince me that there's any value in it.

Given that I'm not interested in retribution, your arguments in this post explain why I don't think a harsh sentence is necessary. The perpetrators are very unlikely to ever do this again so the value in a punishment lies in deterring others. IMO, getting kicked out of school and possibly a conviction with no jail time is adequate to get that job done.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Prank - "a mischievous trick or joke, esp one in which something is done rather than said"

You think this was intended to be a joke?

The hell it was. This was designed to torment and torture the quiet kid.

There's no fine line to walk here. This is no more a prank than mercilessly mocking a fat kid in a lunch line.

No different than shaving a guy's eyebrows off or hanging brain on the passed out chick and taking pictures of it. They weren't out to hurt the kid, they were out to get some laughs from everyone at the kid's expense. This is what is done in colleges all over the country every day. Hell this kind of stuff is the raison d'etre for certain fraternities.

Your demonizing these kids by trying to paint them as torturers and tormentors doesn't make it so.