Dharun Ravi Sentencing: How Should The Former Rutgers Student Be Punished? (VOTE)

Dharun Ravi Awaits Sentencing

UPDATE: May 21, 12:51 p.m. -- Dharun Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail, probation and community service. Click here for more information.

PREVIOUSLY:

Dharun Ravi will be sentenced Monday for spying on his college roommate with a webcam and tweeting about seeing him in an intimate encounter with another man.

A New Jersey judge could sentence Ravi to up to 10 years for the most serious charges related to bullying Tyler Clementi at Rutgers University in September 2010.

Clementi, 18, committed suicide by jumping from the George Washington Bridge days after learning that Ravi wrote on Twitter about seeing him kiss a man in their dorm room.

Prosecutors didn't charge Ravi, now 20, with causing Clementi's death, but they hit him with a 15-count indictment, including invasion of privacy, bias intimidation and tampering with evidence. A jury convicted Ravi on all charges in March.

VIDEO:

There was an outpouring of support for Clementi after his death, which some interpreted as a wake-up call to the persecution faced by young gay men and women in the United States.

Almost two years later, there have been mounting calls for leniency on Ravi. His defenders say giving him a long prison sentence would be an unfair punishment for what was immature behavior, but not an intentional hate crime.

Depending on the Judge Glenn Berman's expected decision in Superior Court, Ravi could be deported to India. A sentence of more than one year makes it likely that federal immigration officials would push to expel him, the Associated Press reported.

The Middlesex County Prosecutors office filed paperwork on May 10 with the court, saying Ravi should be imprisoned, because he "shows no remorse", but doesn't deserve the maximum sentence.

The defense team earlier this month sought to overturn the conviction, because they argued the hate crime law was misapplied to the case.

VOTE:

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot