New Jersey, May 22 (IBNS): An Indo-American student who was charged with webcam spying against his gay roommate who committed suicide in 2010 was sentenced to 30 days in jail on Monday.
The former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi was convicted in March by court in New Jersey on all 15 charges he was slapped with for spying on his gay roommate Tyler Clementi's intimacy with another man. Clementi subsequently committed suicide.
The relatively light sentence for Ravi, who faced up to 10 years in prison, surprised many who watched the hearing that followed the judge spending several minutes criticizing his behaviour.
According to the jury Ravi not only spied on Clementi but also targetted him for being gay. Besides invasion of privacy, the case falls under the definition of hate crimes and anti-gay bias.
He had shown the recording of Clementi and his boyfriend kissing and in bed to several other boys and had tweeted about it.
Nineteen-year-old Dharun Ravi had been charged with secretly using a webcam to shoot Tyler Clementi kissing another male in his room in Sept 2010.
Clementi came to know about the matter and informed it to the college authorities.
Clementi committed suicide days later, apparently under emotional impact of the incident.
He had jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on Sept 22, 2010.
Clementi, reports said quoting authorities, was in an intimate embrace with another man at the time the camera was on.
Dharun was charged and convicted for invasion of privacy, hindering prosecution and bias intimidation in the case that ignited a media firestorm and outrage against anti-homosexuals.
