Dharun Ravi gets a 'wrist slap' in gay hate crime case

New York: Things looked grim for Dharun Ravi after he was found guilty in March of bias intimidation (a hate crime) for using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate Tyler Clementi with a man in their Rutgers dorm room. He faced up to 10 years in prison. But Judge Glenn Berman surprised many on Monday by blasting Ravi, but giving him a relatively light sentence. Ravi will carry a criminal history record for the rest of his life, but some gay activists say he is only getting a wrist-slap because a “homophobic judicial system” has once again validated the “teen prank” defence. “We have opposed throwing the book at Dharun Ravi,” said Steven Goldstein, the chairman of Garden State Equality, a prominent New Jersey gay rights group, who expressed disappointment. “But we have similarly rejected the other extreme, that Ravi should have gotten no jail time at all, and today’s sentencing is closer to that extreme than the other,” added Goldstein. [caption id=“attachment_299058” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“The Judge rapped Dharun Ravi in court, but the sentence was relatively light. Reuters”]  [/caption] Judge Berman was stern as he delivered his sentence and his opening comments did not seem favorable to Ravi. “This jury said ‘guilty’ 288 times – 24 questions, 12 jurors – that’s the multiplication. And I haven’t heard you apologise once,” Judge Berman told Ravi, who sat silently, his chin often resting on his fist. “You cannot expunge the conduct or the pain you caused.” The judge also zeroed in on Ravi’s violation of his roommate’s trust, and how he had lied to police officers, and the “cold and calculated” way in which Ravi had tampered with evidence and potential witnesses. Despite Ravi’s callow behaviour and meanness, giving him 10 years seemed unwarranted even to Middlesex County prosecutors, who filed papers saying he didn’t deserve the maximum possible sentence, even though he “shows no remorse.” The judge cited how the neutral pre-sentencing report said Ravi was “unlikely to commit another crime” and would “respond to probationary treatment.” This obviously played some part in a lenient sentence being handed down. “I do not believe (Dharun Ravi) hated Tyler Clementi,” said Judge Berman before announcing the sentence. “But I do believe he acted out of colossal insensitivity.” Judge Berman sentenced Ravi on Monday to 30 days in jail, 300 hours of community service, sensitivity courses on cyber-bulling and ‘alternative life styles,’ and three years of probation, and ordered that he give $10,000 to a community organisation that helps victims of bias crimes. Berman said he did not choose a longer probationary period because Ravi’s life since September 2010 was a type of exile or self-imposed probationary period. Berman also said he would not recommend deportation for the Indian national. Immigration officials are unlikely to expel Ravi since the judge has sentenced him to less than a year in jail. Ravi’s family was happy to be shown some form of leniency and his relatives hugged each other in the courtroom. Prosecutors appeared angry — they and the Clementi family cancelled a planned post-sentencing news conference — and said they would appeal the sentence. Statements from the Clementi family did not explicitly state what punishment they thought Ravi deserved, but they accused him of being remorseless and unapologetic. Tyler’s brother, James Clementi, said he couldn’t imagine “the level of rejection, isolation and disdain” his brother must have felt from his peers thanks to Ravi’s derisive Twitter messages. Jane Clementi also criticised students who knew about the spying from Ravi’s Twitter feeds. “How could they all go along with such meanness?” she said. “Why didn’t any one of them speak up and try to stop it?” Ravi has been blackballed in the media and courtroom as mean-spirited, idiotic, unrepentant and worse, but his mother drew a vulnerable portrait of a shattered young man. She spoke about her son’s everyday life and how people haven’t understood the impact of what has happened to him. She said he has been living in self-exile for the past 20 months, stopped socialising and seldom left the house. “These past 20 months, my son has been sitting at home, holding all of the stress and pressure inside,” sobbed Sabitha Ravi, as her son also wept. “The smile and bright eyes are gone from his face. He was absolutely devastated and broken into pieces,” she said. “The media’s influence on this case is devastating.” “My 20-year-old son already has too much burden on his shoulders to face the rest of his life,” she said while pleading with the judge to give her son a chance to try his best to lead a normal life. She added that since his arrest, Ravi has lost more than 25 pounds. Ravi has spent the last two years at home doing online courses. “Those who have opposed giving Dharun Ravi jail time have asked, hasn’t he suffered enough? But we believe there’s another question: Has Dharun Ravi done enough? Has he done enough to use his place in history to speak out against student bullying and to make a positive impact on millions of lives across our state and nation?” asked Goldstein. “Thus far, no,” added Goldstein. Other prominent gay commentators expressed discomfort with bringing hate crimes charges against Ravi, saying what he did was repugnant but was not the kind of sustained or aggressive behaviour that constitutes bullying. Ravi refused to plead guilty, even though it would have kept him out of jail because he did not think he had committed a hate crime. He had rejected three offers for a plea bargain that called for no jail time but a long period of community service, along with sensitivity training. But the plea would have required him to admit to hate crimes, and his lawyers said he refused to say he had acted out of bigotry. “They wanted him to plead guilty to being a hatemonger, homophobic and antigay, and he wasn’t going to do it,” Ravi’s lawyer Steven Altman told the judge again on Monday. Clementi, 18, threw himself from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010, shortly after learning that Ravi had secretly videotaped him in their room with a male date. While Ravi never was accused of causing Clementi’s death, the circumstances sparked a debate on bullying faced by gays in schools and colleges.