NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey college student committed suicide by jumping from the George WashingtonBridge, his family said on Wednesday, after his roommate secretly filmed him in a sexual encounter with a man and broadcast it on the Internet.
"Tyler committed suicide last week by jumping from the George Washington Bridge," his family's lawyer, Paul Mainardi, said in a statement on their behalf.
Clementi, an 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman, went missing on Sept. 22 after leaving a post on his Facebook page saying "jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
Police said a body had been pulled from waters near the George Washington Bridge, which connects Manhattan and New Jersey on Wednesday, but had not been positively identified.
The president of Rutgers University, where Clementi was a student, issued a statement saying that Clementi was a victim of a residence hall incident that led to the arrest of two Rutgers students for invasion of privacy.
"Our university community feels the pain of his loss, and I know there is anger and outrage about these events," Rutgers President Richard McCormick said.
Two students, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, both 18, are accused of secretly placing a camera in Clementi's dormitory room and transmitting the sexual encounter with another male on the Internet, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said.
Ravi has also been charged with two additional counts of invasion of privacy for trying to use the secret camera to view and transmit another encounter.
Ravi also allegedly posted messages on Twitter reading "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into Molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."
The Clementi family statement said, "The family and their representatives are cooperating fully with the ongoing criminal investigations of two Rutgers University students."
Both students face up to five years in prison if convicted.
Source:http://www.latimes.com
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