Dharun Ravi apologizes for spying on roommate

Lee Celano / Reuters file

Dharun Ravi stands alone after being sentenced to 30 days for using a webcam to spy on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, and another man in their college dorm room. The case that drew national attention to bullying.

By news services and msnbc.com

A former Rutgers University student criticized by a judge for refusing to apologize for using a webcam to spy on his male roommate kissing another man days before the roommate killed himself apologized on Tuesday and said he has accepted responsibility for what he did.

"I accept responsibility for and regret my thoughtless, insensitive, immature, stupid and childish choices that I made on Sept. 19, 2010, and Sept. 21, 2010," Dharun Ravi, 20,?said in a statement issued through a lawyer. "My behavior and actions, which at no time were motivated by hate, bigotry, prejudice or desire to hurt, humiliate or embarrass anyone, were nonetheless the wrong choices and decisions. I apologize to everyone affected by those choices."

Ravi also said he will begin serving a 30-day jail term on Thursday even though he doesn't have to because?the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office is appealing the sentence,?The Star-Ledger?of Newark?reported. "It's the only way I can go on with my life," he said in the statement.

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It was his most contrite public statement in a case that made him a symbol of what his family called an overzealous prosecution and that made his roommate, Tyler Clementi, a prime example of what gay rights advocates said were the consequences of bullying.

After spending two days repeatedly looking at the Twitter feed on which Ravi announced "I saw him making out with a dude. Yay," Clementi threw himself from New York City's George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, 2010.

In March, a jury convicted Ravi of all 15 criminal counts with which he was charged, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. On two of the intimidation counts, he faced up to 10 years in state prison.

Last week, a judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail beginning May 31. The judge's sentence was dramatically more lenient than state sentencing guidelines, The Star-Ledger reported, which call for five to seven years for second-degree crimes. Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman, however, found that this case included?"extraordinary circumstances."

Ravi could be released in 20 days for good behavior, according to The Star-Ledger.

Prosecutors, finding the sentence too lenient, said they would appeal. Still, the prosecution was a landmark in New Jersey, according to The Star-Ledger. It was the first time invasion of privacy has been?tied to bias intimidation.

Ravi's lawyers have said they expect to appeal the convictions entirely. They say that he was not hateful and that authorities charged him with such serious crimes because of Clementi's suicide even though he was not charged with the 18-year-old's death.

Steven D. Altman,?one of his lawyers, did not immediately return a phone call from msnbc.com on Tuesday afternoon.??

The apology comes as a reversal in course for Ravi, whose story inspired hundreds of people to rally at New Jersey's State House calling for no prison time and changes in the state's hate crime laws.

When Ravi was sentenced last month, Judge Glenn Berman chastised him for not apologizing for his actions.

"I heard this jury say 'guilty' 288 times," Berman said, referring to all the sub-parts of the charges Ravi faced repeated 12 times, once for each juror. "And I haven't heard you apologize once."

During the court proceeding, Ravi, who expressed remorse in March in a newspaper interview, chose not to address the judge, though he cried as his mother pleaded for mercy from the judge.

He told The Star-Ledger newspaper in an interview conducted before the sentencing but published afterward that he did not want to say he was sorry during the sentencing because he thought it would sound insincere.

During the sentencing, Clementi's brother James Clementi said that hearing an apology so late from Ravi would not be meaningful to him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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