Call him “stupid.” Call him “childish.” But you can’t call him a homophobe.
The teen on trial for webcam spying on his Rutgers University roommate’s gay tryst and then tweeting about it to pals — in a prank that may have spurred the roommate’s suicide — has promised a New Jersey jury that they’ll see no evidence of bigotry.
“He may be stupid at times, but he’s an 18-year-old boy,” defense lawyer Steven Altman told jurors in opening statements in Middlesex County Courthouse this morning, referring to defendant Dharun Ravi’s age at the time.
“And he’s certainly not a criminal.”
In fact, Ravi thought the roommate — tragic aspiring violinist, Tyler Clementi, 18 — was “a nice guy,” the defense told jurors today, turning the very first prosecution witness to their advantage to do so.
“He actually told me that Tyler is a nice guy,” the prosecution witness, Austin Chung, a friend of the defendant, told jurors under cross examination.
Clementi, a Rutgers freshman like Ravi, and a budding violinist, jumped to his death off the George Washington bridge in Sept. 2010 — first posting on his Facebook page, “Jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.” The case has sparked a sparked a national debate about cyberbullying.
Ravi has turned down a no-jail plea to prove his innocence, risking a maximum 10 years prison on bias intimidation charges.
“They want you to believe that Dharun is a bigot. That he’s a homophobe. That he’s a hateful, anti-homosexual and anti-gay person,” the defense lawyer told jurors in opening statements.
“He’s not a bigot,” the lawyer said. “At 18, he doesn’t have enough experience to even know about gay life or homosexuality.”
Among the massive amounts of tweets, texts, emails and online chat transcripts that form the bulk of the prosecution case, there is “not one thing that is hateful,” coming from Ravi, the lawyer promised.
No bias, no bias intimidation, the defense appears to be poised to argue. The defense is also putting up a strong battle against the invasion of privacy charges, arguing that it is not a crime to turn on a web cam in one’s own dorm room — and for as little as five seconds.
The defense is also hinting that Ravi had some good reason to snoop on what was going on in his dorm room. Clementi had asked to have the room to himself, and as Ravi left, he saw the 30-something friend Clementi would be entertaining.
Some of the words that witnesses used to identify the friend, identified only as “M.B.”, include “scruffy,” “shady looking,” “old,” “homeless-looking,” and “creepy older dude,” the lawyer told jurors. “M.B.” is expected to testify.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, continue to insist that this was no innocent college prank.
“The defendant’s acts were not a prank,” Middlesex County first prosecutor Julia McClure told a rapt jury. “These acts were purposeful. They were intentional. They were planned..and they were malicious.”
Both sides are barred from mentioning the suicide, which came just days after Ravi used his dorm computer’s web cam to spy on Clementi’s liaison with another man.
“Roommate asked for the room till midnight,” Ravi had tweeted afterward. “I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
When he realized cops were investigating him, Ravi tried to wipe the tweets from his phone — substituting similarly worded but innocuous tweets in a clumsy effort to trick investigators, the prosecutor said this morning.
Ravi is not charged with Clementi’s death.
“This isn’t about Dharun Ravi having to like Tyler Clementi’s sexual orientation,” the prosecutor said in concluding her opening statements. “This is about Dharun Ravi having the decency to respect it, and to respect Tyler’s privacy. The defendant did not do that.”
The families of both Ravi and Clementi are present in the courtroom.