Lawyers for 19-year-old Dharun Ravi, the High School North graduate accused of using a webcam to spy on his Rutgers roommate, last week filed a motion to overturn a judge’s ruling that barred the defense from seeing Tyler Clementi’s computer files and a note found in his backpack by police.
Clementi committed suicide shortly after the encounter with Ravi.
Last month Superior court Jude Glenn Berman said Ravi’s defense team could not see the documents. The computer files were titled “Why is everything so painful,” “Sorry,” and “Gah.” In court papers the statement from Ravi’s attorney, Steven Altman, reads “the only way to find out if T.C. (Clementi’s) computer has additional relevant information is to allow the defense expert to examine it privately.”
Meanwhile the defense has argued that it needs to know more about Clementi’s personal life and his relationship with “M.B.” — the man Clementi brought to the dorm room he shared with Ravi. On October 20 a judge ruled that the identity will be disclosed to the defense team but “may not be disseminated to anyone besides defendant Dharun Ravi, his lawyer, and his lawyer’s investigator.”
Ravi’s trial in Middlesex County is scheduled to begin in February.
The defense team .Learning more about Tyler Clementi through personal items and the identity of the man in his 20’s who he had a sexual encounter with appears to be integral for the defense team of
