A New Brunswick, N.J. courtroom will select a jury on Tuesday in the trial of Tyler Clementi, who was cyber-bullied by his roommate Dahrun Ravi at Rutgers University. Ravi, the student with a silent flip of his laptop webcam, secretly watched his roommate in a moment of homosexual intimacy, and unknowingly set in motion a series of events that would make him a national member of cyber-bullying. The trial will be broadcast live across the country and as far off as India, and will conclude a criminal prosecution that many reportedly believe would not have happened if Clementi had not jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, 2010, three days after Ravi recorded him kissing a man in his dorm room.
Clementi’s death hit an emerging anti-bullying nerve in America and became a trending topic for outrage in the gay community. New Jersey prosecutor Robert Honecker said, “Pressure from gay rights groups, and global media attention made this case one that had to be prosecuted. Yet the charges themselves are very difficult to prove.” Ravi,19, rejected a plea deal, offered in December, that would have permitted him to serve no jail time, but required counseling and 600 hours of community service. If convicted, the Indian citizen could face up to 10 years in state prison on multiple counts of invasion of privacy, witness tampering, hindering prosecution, and bias intimidation.
