Man gets 30-day term in webcam-spying case

Associated Press

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.

A former Rutgers University student who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate was sentenced Monday to just 30 days in jail — a punishment that disappointed some activists but came as a relief to others who feared he would be made a scapegoat for his fellow freshman’s suicide.

Dharun Ravi, 20, could have gotten 10 years behind bars for his part in a case that burst onto front pages when Tyler Clementi threw himself to his death off the George Washington Bridge.

Instead, Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman gave Ravi a month in jail, placed him on three years’ probation and ordered him to get counseling and pay $10,000 toward a program to help victims of hate crimes.

“Our society has every right to expect zero tolerance for intolerance,” the judge said.

Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said he will appeal the sentence, calling it insufficient.

The tear-filled sentencing touched on many of the issues that made the case heart-wrenching and legally complicated: anti-gay bullying, teen suicide, hate-crime laws in the fast-changing Internet age and the uses and abuses of technology in the hands of young people.

Ravi did not speak in court but shed tears as his mother pleaded with the judge not to send him to prison. Afterward, Ravi, his family and his lawyers left court without comment. He is expected to appeal his conviction.

New Jersey gay-rights organization Garden State Equality expressed disappointment with the punishment. In a statement, chairman Steven Goldstein suggested that though the maximum would have been an act of “vengeance,” 30 days was too light.

“This was not merely a childhood prank gone awry,” Goldstein said.

Bill Dobbs, a New York gay-rights activist who has long argued that hate-crime laws can be dangerous, said he believes the judge gave a short sentence in part in response to a backlash against the prosecution that became visible in recent weeks, including at a rally last week at New Jersey’s Statehouse, where hundreds of people called for leniency.

“Law and order cannot solve social problems,” he said. “If you put too much pressure on one person, you can crush someone on the receiving end.”

Marc Poirier, a professor at Seton Hall Law School, said the judge skillfully found a middle ground. “Having no jail time would have been interpreted as being a slap on the wrist,” he said. And a sentence of five to 10 years would be “out of control.”