Web-bully plea deal
No Rutgers retriali l
A former Rutgers University student took a no-jail plea deal Thursday for an infamous cyber-bullying incident that led his roommate to leap to his death from the George Washington Bridge.
Dharun Ravi was convicted in 2012 of using a Web cam to catch Tyler Clementi having sex with a man in their dorm, but won a partial acquittal from a New Jersey appeals court last month.
He pleaded guilty Thursday to third-degree attempted invasion of privacy to resolve the 11 remaining counts against him, heading off a potential retrial, according to NJ.com.
Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman and aspiring violinist, committed suicide in September 2010 after learning that Ravi had mocked him on Twitter and urged people to watch the next Web cast.
Clementi’s death sparked widespread outrage over Ravi’s digital spying.
Tyler’s dad, Joe Clementi, blasted Garden State lawmakers over a bias statute that was ruled unconstitutional in an unrelated case, leading to Ravi’s successful appeal on the four top counts on which a Middlesex County jury had convicted him.
“I think our legislators need to make laws that are clear and that can stand the test of application, so we don’t have a situation as what happened in this case,” Clementi said.
Ravi, 24, who had faced up to 10 years in prison, pursued his appeal even though he had served his 30-day jail sentence on the conviction. He told NJ.com that it “feels good” knowing the case is finally finished, saying he felt “relieved.”