Manslaughter Charges in Clementi Case?

Equality Forum, a national LGBT advocacy group, is calling for manslaughter charges to be brought against the two Rutgers students who broadcast a sexually explicit video of Tyler Clementi on the Internet.

The video, secretly taped by Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, showed Clementi having sex with another male student; it's believed that broadcast of the video led to Clementi taking his life September 22 by jumping off New York's George Washington Bridge.

"The willful and premeditated conduct of Ravi and Wei in planting a web camera and in distributing over the internet sexual intimacy is shocking, malicious, and heinous," Malcolm Lazin, executive director of Equality Forum, said in a press release. "Equality Forum calls on the prosecutor to file murder by reckless manslaughter charges."

Middlesex County, N.J., prosecutor Bruce Kaplan has already filed charges under Ravi and Wei under his state's invasion-of-privacy laws and under the transmission and distribution of nudity and sexual contact laws. Prosecutors are considering bringing hate-crimes charges against Ravi and Wei as well.