Friend: Rutgers man urged 'viewing party'

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- A former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man said someone at Rutgers was planning a "viewing party" with beer and rum to watch the dorm room liaison, a high school friend testified yesterday.

The revelation came in testimony from Michelle Huang, a Cornell University student who says Dharun Ravi told her about it in a text message on Sept. 21, 2010.

Ravi, 20, is on trial for 15 criminal counts, including invasion of privacy, bias intimidation and several charges accusing him of trying to cover his tracks. Bias intimidation is a hate crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, 2010. The case has sparked a national conversation about the difficulties faced by young gays.

Prosecutors are trying to prove that Ravi intentionally tried to humiliate Clementi. Huang testified that Ravi urged her to video chat him so she could see the webcam footage.

"Do it for real," Ravi wrote in a text that was shown to jurors. "I have it pointed at his bed." People were planning a "viewing party with a bottle of Bacardi and beer" to watch the webstream that night, Huang said. It was the first mention of a planned party in the trial, which had its seventh day of testimony yesterday.

Huang later testified that after Clementi had killed himself, Ravi texted her that the talk of a viewing party was a joke.

Witnesses have said the webcam wasn't working that night.

But Douglas Rager, a former university police detective, testified later yesterday that when he went to inspect the dorm room on Sept. 23, he noticed that Ravi's webcam was "angled directly at Tyler's bed."

Ravi isn't charged in Clementi's death, and the judge has been cautious about how the suicide would come into the trial.

Prosecutors are precluded from linking the spying allegations to the suicide. Defense lawyers cannot make the case that Clementi killed himself for other reasons.