Testimony continued this week in the trial of Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student accused of cyberbullying roommate Tyler Clementi days before the latter took his own life.
A national spotlight was on the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Jersey as classmates of the accused took the stand to detail their version of the September 2010 incident. Ravi is accused of spying on Clementi in an embrace with another man and sharing those images with other students. A few days later, Clementi committed suicide.
Molly Wei, who was originally arrested alongside Ravi, testified for the prosecution early this week that Ravi remotely turned on his webcam from her computer after Clementi asked to have the room to himself for a few hours. Wei said she and Ravi were “shocked” by the images of Clementi kissing another man and watched the video for about two seconds before shutting it off.
Wei said she and Ravi chatted with other friends online about what they’d seen and, within minutes, several other students stopped by and they turned the feed back on, finding both men were shirtless.
Ravi allegedly sent out a Twitter message later that week to invite classmates to again view the feed when Clementi asked for the room, which Wei said on the stand she did not learn about until after Clementi was reported missing.
Wei contacted police to report Ravi’s tweet, which he had attempted to delete, and she was then arrested.
“I thought if there’s something significant that could help the search for Tyler or anything, it would be wrong of me to not tell them I had found this out,” she said. “I personally felt like I had done something wrong but I didn’t really understand the law.”
Wei’s testimony was part of an agreement that included 300 community-service hours.
Also this week, a university official testified that Clementi filed a request for a room change less than two days after the webcam incident but it was not processed until after his suicide.
Last Friday, two Rutgers students who also knew Ravi testified, Pooja Kolluri and Scott Xu.
Ravi faces 15 counts, including invasion-of-privacy and bias charges.
The trial is expected to last three to four weeks.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].