'Indian- origin student had tried to apologize for web- streaming gay roommate's encounter'

Washington, Mar 8(ANI): The lawyer of former Indian-origin Rutgers student accused of spying on his roommate has said that his client had tried to explain and apologize for recording his hostel room-mate, Tyler Clementi's intimate encounter with his date on September 22, 2010.

The lawyer read out the final text messages exchanged between Dharun Ravi and his roommate Tyler Clementi, CBS News reports.

"I wanted to make amends for Sunday night. I assure you all my actions were good-natured...I've known you were gay and have no problem with it...I don't want your freshman year to be ruined because of a petty misunderstanding," Ravi had said.

The text messages were shown to the jury during the testimony of Robert Torrisi, a detective at the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.

The detective told jurors that Ravi had sent a pair of Twitter messages on September 22, 2010, after it was believed that Clementi had killed himself.

Clementi committed suicide after he came to know that his encounter was web-streamed.

Witnesses had earlier told jurors that Ravi sent a similar message a day earlier, but, instead of saying "Don't you dare videochat me," it told followers, "I dare you to videochat me."

The message is central to the prosecution's case that Ravi attempted to spy on Clementi on September 21 and intimidated him by telling other people to watch the encounter.

The later messages form the basis of prosecutors' allegation that he used Twitter to cover his tracks by erasing an earlier message, replacing it with a similar but less damaging one, and subsequently claiming it was a mistake. (ANI)

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