A jury found Dharun Ravi guilty of privacy invasion and bias intimidation

A jury found Dharun Ravi guilty of privacy invasion and bias intimidation – a hate crime (all 15 counts against him), deciding that Ravi not only invaded the privacy of Tyler Clementi and another man but also committed bias intimidation — a hate crime — by targeting Clementi because he was gay.

Ravi, 20, could get up to 10 years in prison by some estimates and could be deported to his native India even though he has lived legally in the U.S. since he was a little boy.

The case stirred a national conversation about anti-gay bullying and teen suicide. It also illustrated the dangers of technology in the hands of people who have grown up with the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

“They don’t feel like they’re spying. It’s just their own iPhone they’re using, their own laptop,” said Annemarie McAvoy, an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School in New York. “Hopefully, parents will use this as an example for their children.”

Prosecutors said Ravi set up his webcam in his dorm room and watched live video of Clementi kissing another man on Sept. 19, 2010, then tweeted about it and excitedly tried to catch Clementi in the act again two days later. A half-dozen students were believed to have seen the live video of the kissing; no video was taken in the second instance.

On Sept. 22, Clementi threw himself off the George Washington Bridge after posting one last status update on Facebook: “Jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.”

Sounds like a whole new generation of court cases due to the new generation of technology.

Source Associated Press