Dharun Ravi’s trial for invasion of privacy and bias intimidation continues in New Jersey today with the testimony from the man Ravi surreptitiously filmed meeting with his roommate Tyler Clementi romantically. While Ravi is not charged in the death of Clementi, who soon after jumped from the George Washington bridge, prosecutors are attempting to show that Ravi targeted Clementi because he was gay. The man, identified only as “M.B.”, said he noticed Ravi’s web cam aimed at Clementi’s bed.
“I noticed there was a web cam, faced over in the direction of the bed. I just thought it was strange. Being in a compromising position … it just caught my eye that there was a camera lens looking right at me,” M.B. testified, with just one courtroom camera filming him from the neck down, and his voice distorted on the stream of the trial. M.B. is being considered another victim in the case, and fought to keep his name private.
He said he met Clementi on “a social networking site for gay men,” and hoped to see him again after their second date at Clementi’s dorm, but “as far as whether I intended to see him there again, I felt a little uneasy about it.”
A Rutgers officer testified yesterday that Ravi told him about the man’s first visit, but omitted the second. Prosecutors say Ravi deleted texts and tweets advertising a video feed of Clementi’s encounter, thereby tampering with evidence. Ravi faces fifteen counts, and could serve up to ten years in prison.
