Clementi case defendant pleads out to minor charge
Dharun Ravi finally spoke in court.
It's been 3 1/2 years since he was convicted on 15 counts of bias intimidation, invasion of privacy and evidence tampering for cyberspying on his roommate Tyler Clementi.
He did not speak in court then, not in his own defense nor to plead for mercy or even offer an apology to the family of Clementi.
But yesterday he spoke, admitting his guilt to a charge of 3th degree attempted invasion of privacy, just one month after an appellate court overturned his previous conviction, dismissed five of the bias intimidation charges and recommended a new trial on the others.
There will be no new trial. This case, which began six years ago, is finally over.
"It feels good. I'm relieved," Ravi said before leaving Middlesex County Superior Court with his parents.
"He just wants to get on with his life," said Ravi's attorney Steve Altman. "He wants to blend in. He wants to disappear into the crowd."
MORE: Recent Mark Di Ionno columns
In short, he no longer wants to be Dharun Ravi, a hated symbol of homophobic cyber bullying. He wants to be just another guy from the I.T. department.
That's what Ravi does now. Living and working in New York City, using the computer skills he has honed since he was a teenager.
He had just turned 18 when he used those skills to spy on Clementi, his roommate in a Rutgers freshman hall, while Clementi entertained an older male guest in their room.
It was Clementi's suicidal jump from the George Washington Bridge days later that brought national attention to the case.
That narrative -- played out by public figures from President Barack Obama to TV show Ellen Degeneres -- went something like this:
Ravi recorded Clementi having gay sex and put it out over the internet, then invited the public to a second showing, causing Clementi such embarrassment and shame it drove him to suicide.
The facts were quite different. Ravi used his computer to spy on Clementi and the 30-year-old male guest known only in court as M.B.
What he and co-defendant Molly Wei, a former high school classmate of Ravi's who lived across the dorm hall from him at Rutgers, saw were the two men kissing with shirts on for three seconds. The computer was snapped shut, according to testimony, then opened again, when the men were shirtless, then shut for good. No sex, no internet sharing, no second show, though Ravi did send out messages to his friends that he planned one and hooked up the computer to spy again.
There remain several important facts to this case that never made the greater public narrative.
The first were pieces of Clementi family correspondence ruled inadmissible by former Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman before the trial, which may have included a suicide note or other telling information about Clementi's mental state before his suicide. Berman kept them out of the trial because Ravi wasn't charged in Clementi's death.
The interesting part here is that the prosecution, not the defense, fought to suppress that correspondence.
"We'll never know what was in those letters," Altman said. "Or if they pointed to Dharun Ravi, or didn't."
But they certainly contributed to what critics called a light 30-day jail term Berman imposed on Ravi after his conviction on the 15 counts in 2012, for which he faced up to 10 years in prison.
Leading up the 2012 trial Ravi was offered several plea deals. He refused them all because they required him to admit to bias intimidation.
And that is why we are here, six years after the incident.
Ravi, supported by his parents who would spend about $300,000 in his defense, did not want to admit to something he felt in his heart "was a lie."
In an exclusive interview in this column just hours after he was convicted, Ravi said, "I'm never going to regret not taking the plea.
"If I took the plea, I would have had to testify that I did what I did to intimidate Tyler and that would be a lie," he said in 2012.
Certainly the testimony in the trial didn't suggest otherwise.
Several prosecution witnesses testified Ravi never complained about Clementi being gay, only that he was quiet. University officials said Ravi never requested a room change, either.
Yes, Ravi sent a text message to a friend after learning through social media that his new roommate was gay.
That text "f*** my life, my roommate's gay" -- was exhibited by prosecutors during trial.
(Likewise, Clementi was unhappy about Ravi as a roommate. "I got an azn" he texted a friend, said Ravi's parents "defs owna dunkin (donuts).")
Still, Ravi remained adamant that he did not spy on Clementi solely because he gay and was not trying to bully or intimidate him.
"I won't ever get up there and tell the world I hated Tyler because he was gay," he said in the 2012 interview, "or tell the world I was trying to hurt or intimidate him because it's not true."
And yesterday he said he still did not regret taking an earlier plea.
"I never changed my mind about that," he said. "I wasn't going to admit to something I didn't do."
With almost no media present - a far cry from the camera-packed courtrooms of his trial -- Ravi quietly answered the questions of Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone and Altman, acknowledging only that he tried to activate a computer on Sept. 21 to catch Clementi in a sexual act and had invited others to watch. The activation failed.
Giving simple yes and no answers, Ravi was led through a series of about 30 questions, including the understanding they he could possibly face deportation, although the judge went on record saying he would oppose it.
"We met with an immigration lawyer and it's very, very unlikely," Altman said.
At the end of the questioning, Paone released Ravi saying, "the defendant has no further obligation to the state." He was credited with his time served, he had completed his probation, paid his $10,000 fine and completed the cyberbullying class ordered by Berman.
The "state of New Jersey vs. Dharun Ravi" was over, six years' worth, just like that.
And with his parents and a lone friend, Ravi left the courthouse and walked onto the New Brunswick streets, determined to disappear into the crowd.
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.