Trial in Rutgers spycam case begins

New Brunswick, New Jersey: The trial of a former Rutgers University student, who allegedly used a webcam to spy on his roommate's homosexual act, opened on Friday with prosecutors saying he violated the "dignity and privacy" of the 18-year-old roommate, who later committed suicide.

Defence attorneys countered that Dharun Ravi, 19, behaved childishly but did not commit a crime. He faces 15 counts of invasion of privacy, witness and evidence tampering and bias intimidation, a hate crime, in New Jersey's Middlesex County Court.

Ravi, who rejected an earlier plea deal, faces up to ten years in prison if convicted in the case, which attracted wide media attention as an incident of cyberbullying after the suicide of Tyler Clementi.

Ravi used a webcam on September 19, 2010, to watch Clementi, who was kissing another man in their dormitory room. He also posted on Twitter, inviting friends to watch another encounter that did not take place. Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge connecting New Jersey and New York City three days later. Ravi is not charged with causing Clementi's death.

"This isn't about Dharun Ravi having to like Tyler Clementi's sexual orientation ... but it is about having the decency to respect it and to respect Tyler's dignity and privacy," prosecutor Julia McClure told the jury.

In his opening statement, defence attorney Steven Altman emphasised Ravi's youth, saying: "He's a boy, childish, at times immature. He was 18."

Ravi and Clementi shared the dorm room, Altman said, so Ravi was looking into his own room.

"It's Dharun's room. I can't emphasise that enough," he said. "That's where he lives."

He also noted that Ravi made no recording of the incident nor did he post it online. Early reports that the tryst was posted on the internet, "outing" Clementi, were wrong.

"That viewing lasted two to five seconds," the defence attorney said. "Nobody saw anything."

Experts say it may be difficult to prove the incident was a hate crime. For such a conviction, prosecutors must prove Ravi attempted to intimidate Clementi for being gay.