New York:
Indian American student Dharun Ravi touted in text messages that "people are having a viewing party" to watch the webcam footage of his roommate being intimate with another man, according to court testimony.
Testifying Monday at Ravi's trial in a New Brunswick, New Jersey, one of his high school friends, Michelle Huang, read out a Twitter message from Sep 19, 2010, in which Ravi wrote that he went into a mutual friend's room, "turned on my webcam" and saw his roommate "making out with a dude."
Two days later, Ravi sent another message telling his Twitter followers-of which Huang was one-"I dare you to videochat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it's happening again."
Ravi, a former New Jersey State Rutgers University student, is charged with spying on his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi, who days later took his own life by leaping from the George Washington Bridge.
Ravi said that he was "creeped out" by the Sep 19 romantic encounter between Clementi and another man, which he suggested he witnessed-via his hidden camera-with several others, Huang testified.
"Keep the gays away," he wrote, according to a text message that was shown on a screen in the courtroom.
Ravi's lawyer, Stephen Altman, meanwhile, introduced a message sent the next day in which his client told Huang that his roommate had committed suicide and described it as "crazy."
"I guess he was quiet because he was depressed," wrote the defendant.
When she brought up the "viewing party" that he'd written about it earlier, Ravi wrote back: "No that was a joke."