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News Roundup for September 9, 2011

A former Rutgers University student charged with intimidating his roommate because he was gay was in court today as attorneys tried to work out some key issues in the case. Dharun Ravi, 19, allegedly used a webcam to spy on Tyler Clementi’s encounter with another man in September 2010. The judge ruled that prosecutors must give defense lawyers the name of the man having the intimate encounter with Clementi and refused to dismiss the hate crime and invasion of privacy charges.

Cameron Nelson, 32, became the third gay Utahan in less than two weeks to report being attacked allegedly because of his sexuality. Nelson was taking out the trash at work when two or three people beat him up and yelled anti-gay slurs at him. Police in Salt Lake City are still investigating attacks on two other gay men.

Kenneth Paul Stiffey Jr., 21, of Indiana County, Pa., was sentenced to 18 months in prison and three years of federal supervision for his role in a 2009 cross burning. Prosecutors said Stiffey helped transport the cross in a truck and kept it in his garage until another conspirator took it into a neighboring family’s yard and lit it. The family hosted a black foster child.

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