Webcam

A former Rutgers University freshman pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy in the webcast of his roommate's sexual encounter with another man. The roommate committed suicide days afterward. Dharun Ravi, 19, of Plainsboro, said nothing during his first court appearance, a brief arraignment hearing at Middlesex County Superior Court in New Brunswick. His attorney, Steven Altman, entered the plea for him. Altman and Ravi declined to comment afterward.

TORONTO - A 29-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a college student whose frantic boyfriend in China watched though a webcam as she struggled with an attacker, police said yesterday. Brian Dickson was charged with first-degree murder, Toronto police spokesman Tony Vella said. Dickson was scheduled to appear in court this morning. Police did not release any more details but asked the media not to publish any photos of Dickson, saying it could compromise the investigation.

The family of the teenager in the middle of Lower Merion's "webcamgate" controversy travels in good company. You can tell from a snapshot on the father's Facebook page. Michael E. Robbins is beaming inches away from a smiling Hillary Rodham Clinton. Outside the family's Penn Valley home yesterday, Holly Robbins wouldn't talk about their lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District - but chuckled when asked about the photo of her husband with the secretary of state. She said it was taken at a fund-raiser during Clinton's 2008 run for president.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - A key prosecution witness in the trial of a former Rutgers University student accused of watching his roommate's intimate encounter via webcam testified Monday that she agreed to keep it a secret because it was shocking to see the images - but that it wasn't under wraps for long. "First of all, it was shocking. It felt wrong. We didn't expect to see that. . . . It was like we shouldn't have seen it," Molly Wei told jurors. "We didn't want people to know what had happened.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - A man who witnesses say was watched via webcam kissing a male Rutgers University student who later committed suicide told jurors Friday that he saw the camera pointed in their direction while they were being intimate. "I had just glanced over my shoulder, and I noticed there was a webcam that was faced toward the direction of the bed," the man, identified only as M.B., said in court, later noting that there was no light indicating it was on. "Just being in a compromising position and seeing a camera lens, it just stuck out to me. " The man testified that he had met Tyler Clementi in August 2010 through a social-networking site for gay men and said he texted repeatedly after their third and final rendezvous.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - A Rutgers University student gave some of the most damaging testimony yet Wednesday in a former classmate's trial for allegedly using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man. Lokesh Ojha described helping the defendant, Dharun Ravi, adjust his webcam so he could get a clear view of his roommate's bed. Authorities say that by then, Ravi had already spied on roommate Tyler Clementi once and...

"Webcamgate," the Lower Merion School District soap opera about two teens and two school-issued laptops that spied on them, was never supposed to be about money. But that's exactly what brought the whole screwy saga to a close yesterday - a boatload of money. The district's Board of School Directors voted unanimously to pay $610,000 to settle lawsuits filed by the families of Harriton High sophomore Blake Robbins and Lower Merion High graduate Jalil Hasan, both of whom were unknowingly photographed scores of times at home by webcams on Apple MacBooks.

Prosecutors on Tuesday said they would not bring criminal charges in the Lower Merion School District webcam saga, ending their six-month probe into allegations that employees spied on students through laptops. U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger would not disclose details of the investigation except to say that agents and prosecutors concluded the evidence did not point to a crime. "For the government to prosecute a criminal case, it must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person charged acted with criminal intent," Memeger said in a brief statement released by his office.

The letter from Lower Merion school administrators delivered the news three weeks ago - her son had been secretly monitored by the webcam on his school-issued laptop. But only when Fatima Hasan saw the evidence did the scope of the spying on her son Jalil become apparent. There were more than 1,000 images surreptitiously captured by the computer - 469 webcam photographs and 543 screen shots. All were evidence in the case against the Lower Merion School District and its now-abandoned electronic monitoring policy.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - The New Jersey Attorney General's Office is reviewing the case of a Rutgers University freshman who jumped from the George Washington Bridge last week after images of him having sex with another man were broadcast on the Internet, and will decide whether to prosecute the incident as a bias crime, a spokesman said. A body that was pulled from the Hudson River on Wednesday was identified yesterday as that of Tyler Clementi, a 2009 graduate of Ridgewood High School. The death was ruled a suicide.

Even the 30-day prison sentence given to a former Rutgers University student who used a webcam to secretly record his roommate having a romantic encounter with another man may have been too much. Many legal experts agree that Dharun Ravi, 20, probably wouldn't have been charged with any crime had not his victim, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide two days after the September 2010 incident. Even so, there was no evidence that Ravi's despicable act directly triggered Clementi's death.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Lawyers for Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student convicted of spying on his college roommate kissing another man, have asked a Superior Court judge to overturn the jury's verdict, arguing among other things that the state's bias-intimidation law was misused. In a motion filed Tuesday, Steven Altman said that evidence in the case did not support the invasion-of-privacy conviction and that the bias-intimidation charges were unfounded. Altman asked Judge Glenn Berman to throw out the conviction or grant Ravi, 20, a new trial.

PLAINSBORO, N.J. - The former Rutgers University student convicted in a webcam spying case said that he was insensitive toward his gay roommate but not biased, and that he didn't think he was the reason for his roommate's suicide. Dharun Ravi, 20, was convicted last week of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, a hate crime, after using a webcam to view a snippet of Tyler Clementi's dorm-room liaison with another man, then tweeting about it. The case drew huge attention when Clementi, 18, threw himself off the George Washington Bridge.

YOUR MARCH 20 editorial ("College Loans the Next Debt Bomb") correctly brings attention to a concern for many families, but it fails to mention one important strategy to address this dilemma: saving for college. Saving for higher education offers enormous benefits compared to borrowing. If a family saves $25 a month, it could have about $10,264 after 18 years. Those savings can gain state tax deductions, too. Meanwhile, someone who repays a $10,000 loan with interest over 18 years would ultimately pay $18,563 without any favorable state tax treatment.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - An alternate juror in the trial of a former Rutgers University student convicted in a webcam spying episode that ended in his gay roommate's suicide said he disagrees with the verdict. James Downey told the Record of Hackensack on Saturday that he wouldn't have voted to convict Dharun Ravi on any charges related to allegations that his actions were motivated by anti-gay bias. Prosecutors said Ravi set up his webcam in his dorm room and watched Tyler Clementi kissing another man on Sept.

Here is a verdict sheet for Dahrun Ravi in the Rutgers webcam spying case. T.C. is Tyler Clementi. M.B. is the man he was with during the spying incident. Some counts have more than one element, but Ravi only had to be convicted on one element to be guilty of the charge. Count 1 Fourth-Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to T.C.: GUILTY Fourth-Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to T.C.'s guest, M.B.: GUILTY Count 2 Third-Degree Bias Intimidation - Invasion of Privacy with the purpose to intimidate T.C. because of sexual orientation: NOT GUILTY - Invasion of Privacy with the purpose to intimidate M.B. because of sexual orientation: NOT GUILTY - Invasion of Privacy, knowing that the conduct constituting invasion of privacy would cause T.C. to be intimidated because of sexual orientation: NOT GUILTY - Invasion of Privacy, knowing that the conduct constituting invasion of privacy would cause M.B. to be intimidated because of sexual orientation: NOT GUILTY - Invasion of Privacy, under circumstances that caused T.C. to be intimidated, and considering the manner in which the offense was committed, T.C. reasonably believed that he was selected to be the target of the offense because of sexual orientation: GUILTY Count 3 Third-Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to T.C.: GUILTY Third-Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to M.B.: GUILTY ...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - The lawyer for a former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate in an intimate encounter with a man asked a jury Tuesday to focus on his client's intent rather than his actions in reaching a verdict. "What's important is the context in which everything was done," Steven Altman told the Middlesex County Superior Court panel, which is expected to begin deliberations Wednesday in the high-profile case against Dharun Ravi. But First Assistant County Prosecutor Julia McClure told the jury that Ravi's actions were "mean-spirited and malicious.

NEW BRUNWSICK, N.J. - Jurors in the trial of a former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man will not hear directly from the defendant. Dharun Ravi's defense lawyer rested his case Monday without calling Ravi to testify. The jury could begin deliberating Tuesday or Wednesday, after lawyers give their summations, and the judge gives instructions. Ravi's lawyer, Steven Altman, said Monday that although he didn't think there was anything to gain from having his client testify, the jury might hear from him indirectly in closing arguments.

NEW BRUNSWICK - Dharun Ravi was "stupid . . . ignorant . . . immature," his lawyer told a Middlesex County Superior Court jury this morning, but he was not a criminal. Attorney Steven Altman hammered away at that theme in a lengthy summation in the Rutgers University webcam spy case, urging the jurors who will decide his client's fate to remember that he was "an 18-year-old kid" just starting his first year in college when he saw his roommate kissing another man via a webcam stream from his dorm room.