Rutgers Students Say Webcam Spy Guy Is Misunderstood

As we noted earlier, initial reports that a student at Rutgers streamed his roommate’s intimate encounter live on the Internet are not quite accurate. Dharun Ravi, who faces up to five years for invasion of privacy, did not record or broadcast footage of his roommate, Tyler Clementi, making out with another man. That doesn't make what he did (or the consequences) any less appalling, but the initial impression that Clementi's encounter was broadcast over the Internet is somewhat inaccurate. And Ravi's friends say there's more to the story, and tell the Rutgers student paper that on the first night Clementi asked to be alone in the room, Ravi spied via the webcam because he was concerned about his roommate's guest:

Students said Clementi asked his roommate Ravi to leave the room so that he could have time alone with a guest on the evening of Sept. 19. A strange, older male later arrived at the room, they said. Ravi went to Wei's room, where he used a computer to access footage of the room from his webcam, they said.
Ravi had no intention of witnessing any kind of intimate encounter between the two, but rather wanted to see if anything unusual was taking place inside his room, as he was not familiar with Clementi's guest, they said. "He just wanted to see what was going on," a student said. Upon seeing what was taking place inside the room, Ravi immediately closed the window on the screen, the student said.

And because when you're a teenager in 2010 you overshare everything, even your prurience, Ravi tweeted, "...I saw him making out with a dude. Yay." On September 21st, when Clementi again asked for the room, Ravi allegedly tried to share the encounter via webcam with friends on iChat, but this failed. Gawker finds that Ravi's attempt to humiliate his roommate further may have been unsuccessful because Clementi knew what Ravi was up to.

A person posting on a gay community message board "Just Us Boys" appears to have been Clementi reaching out for advice. It has not been confirmed that the anonymous poster "cit2mo" is Clementi, but the story he shares about a roommate spying on him via webcam is very similar to what we know so far. And on the night before Clementi committed suicide, cit2mo wrote:

so I wanted to have the guy over again.
I texted roomy around 7 asking for the room later tonight and he said it was fine.

when I got back to the room I instantly noticed he had turned the webcam toward my bed. And he had posted online again….saying…."anyone want a free show just video chat me tonight"…or something similar to that….

so after that…..

I ran to the nearest RA and set this thing in motion…..

we'll see what happens……

I haven't even seen my roommate since sunday when i was asking for the room the first time….and him doing it again just set me off….so talking to him just didn't seen like an option….

meanwhile I turned off and unplugged his computer, went crazy looking for other hidden cams….and then had a great time.

Police believe Clementi jumped off the George Washington bridge less than 24 hours later.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on September 30, 2010 2:54 PM

Comments [rss]

DEFIANTROA

Hang him and that Wei batch!

xinvincible21

Is it just me or Kumar is that you? Shouldn't you be rolling around with a large bag of weed?

John L

"meanwhile I turned off and unplugged his computer, went crazy looking for other hidden cams….and then had a great time."

Doesn't sound like someone so distraught that he's about to kill himself.

justthinkin

Damn the new technology. Back when I was in college, if my roommate asked to use the room for the night, I honored his signals, which amounted to a rubber band on the doorknob. Why did this guy leap to an assumption that his roommates friends/lovers/whatever were somehow suspect enough to webcam his encounters? Was his "concern" for his roommate or his own stuff? Bogus defense. He should face the max. Yay.

bonu$baby

Scum, there is no excuse for what you did to that poor boy.

NlGGAZ

Holy Shit! This is just like the beginning of OLDBOY wherein our protagonist spies a girl and her brother making out and tells everyone. Girl commits suicide by jumping off a bridge and then the protagonist is held captive by said brother for ten years. Let's hope Ravi is released in 5 years and is hypnotically entranced to have sex with his own daughter. "Whether it be a grain of sand or a rock in water they sink the same"

Guest

omg, this is totally oldboy.

Stewart

Ravi is screwed. I predict he won't be a rutgers student much longer. He can try to spin it as best he can, but no one is buying it. He should be held legally accountable for spying, and serve a light sentence or community service. Then he should try to get on with his life and give up bullying people.

OSN!

The dorm room was also Ravis, so I kinda question any wire tapping type charge. I really can't see how he can be charged with a crime for turning on his cam in his own dorm room, especially if there was no audio. The only other charge would be transmitting the images and some kind of bias (homophobic) hate crime charge. But, isn't this dude Ravi also gay? And the chicks involvement appears to have been peripheral.

Now, I get negative vibes from this Ravi dude also, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be railroaded in the heat of the moment. Tyler's mental health issues must have been pretty severe and Ravi wasn't responsible for that.

kleinpeter

If he was really concerned he should have just told him roommate he's not comfortable with a stranger in his place.

JacqueMehoff

that's true, and I'm sure his roommate would respect that. instead of being all spycam perv.

this guy Ravi, I don't like him and not because he's an entitled, privileged D baby.

Rocknrope

Oh, bullshit. He was so "concerned" that he tried to stream the activity a second time to his friends via Ichat, right?

Ravi can rot for 2.5 years and have a criminal record, which I hope prevents him from having any meaningful career for 15 years or so. Maybe then he'll think about what stupid "pranks" he tries to pull before he pulls them.

OSN!

Authorities better do a good job collating evidence and creating a clear picture of what occurred because two other peoples lives are at stake. And they better have damn good lawyers.

I think there's more to this story than is currently being told, and it should come out in court at the latest. What Ravi did was obnoxious but not malicious imo. And it appears the chick knew next to nothing about what was going on, but her name is being dragged through the mud. The whole thing doesn't add up. Highly unlikely Tyler killed himself SOLELY because of this goofy incident.

S.D.

"Highly unlikely Tyler killed himself SOLELY because of this goofy incident."

Very true, but they aren't being charged in connection to that, only the unauthorized video and dissemination of it.

What ever his reason was, tragically, he jumped off the bridge.

airtech1

Exactly. This is what happens in our age of rapid-fire, decontextualized posting, tweeting. Every word, meaning, etc. can be framed to say what we want it to say (or, confirm our own deep, darkest projections of people, events).

Just sad and tragic all the way around for everyone involved.

robingee

This kid is backtracking. The evidence of what he was up to is all over the Internet. It doesn't stay gone just because you delete it, dude.

S.D.

"Ravi spied via the webcam because he was concerned about his roommate's guest"

Eh. If not for his tweet, it might have been plausible.

Now, not so much.

Madly Hatting

Spying was so much cooler before the internet/web cams when you had to do the dirty work yourself.

Guest

technology, assisting the average human since the invention of fire.

kswissreject

While I doubt the verity of his concern for the guest, to be honest, I could see how the tweet could mean that. As in, yay, he's just making out, not stealing my stuff or something like that. Just thinking...