GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A former Rudgers University student convicted of spying with a webcam on his gay room-mate who then committed suicide was sentenced Monday 21 May to 30 days in prison in a US court.
The sentencing of Dharun Ravi, 20, who had filmed Tyler Clementi, 18, kissing another man in his dorm room, and twittering about the incident days before Clementi killed himself, was criticized by both sides in the case. Ravi, an Indian national, could have received up to ten years in jail, but instead was given three years probation in addition to the jail term, and was ordered to get counseling on cyber-bullying and “alternate lifestyles” and to pay $10,000 to help victims of hate crimes.
The prosecution’s lawyer, Bruce Kaplan said he would appeal the New Jersey court decision, saying the jail term was insufficient. A gay-rights organization in the northeastern state, Garden State Equality issued a statement saying that whilst it objected to a ten year term, the 30 day term was not enough. “This was not merely a childhood prank gone awry. This was not a crime without bias”.
Ravi’s lawyer, Steven Alman, said his client had been “demonized by the gay community” and objected to the sentence, complaining that the case was “being treated as if it’s a murder case”.
As he announced the judgment, Judge Glenn Berman said he had not heard Ravi apologize once, and felt that while he did not think he had acted out of hate towards Clementi, he was guilty of “colossal insensitivity”.
The case sparked a debate in the United States on the issues of anti-gay bullying, teenage suicide, hate crime laws and the use of new technology by young users.
Links to other sources: BBC, NPR, Associated Press
Lucie was murdered near Zurich in March 2008
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The 28-year-old man accused of killing 16-year-old Lucie Trezzini from Fribourg in March 2009 was sentenced to 20 years in prison Wednesday.
The defense for Daniel, who has a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, Wednesday morning asked for the sentence to be limited to 18 years, with a series of long and intense therapeutic measures.
The prosecution Tuesday asked that he be sentenced to life in prison.
The father of the girl, who was tricked into going to his apartment for what she thought was a photo session for jewelry, said Tuesday that Daniel is a sick man and should be locked up for life.
Lucie’s case drew nationwide attention. She was working as an au pair girl in Rieden-bei-Baden in canton Aargau, to improve her German, when she met Daniel during a day trip to Zurich.
The girl’s family later sued the cantonal prison service, which had released him without what the family argued was a suitable plan for the serial offender.
Lucie’s disappearance and murder changed Swiss attitudes towards adopting a nationwide child disappearance alert system, which went into effect in January 2010. Cell phone owners can register to be included, in order to spread the information as quickly and as widely as possible once a child disappears.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Renzo Gadola, former UBS wealth management senior banker, was given a sentence of five year’s probation last week in Florida after he was earlier found guilty of helping wealthy Americans evade US taxes by hiding their assets in offshore accounts.
It came out in a court document, “Motion for Downward Departure From Sentencing Guidelines“, filed 15 November that he cooperated with investigators by recording meetings with clients as well as turning over the names of other bankers who are suspected of criminal activity. The document requested that he be treated leniently in sentencing because of his cooperation.
Gadola began to work with investigators shortly after he was arrested, the document notes. He is credited by US media with leading US Justice Department investigators to other bankers who have reportedly helped clients defraud the IRS through Swiss banks. The information he supplied showed for the first time that cantonal banks in Switzerland may also have been involved in hiding US clients’ money.
Former UBS banker “wishes to continue” working with US Justice Department
A 48-year-old former nurse accused of seeking out and encouraging via the Internet people who were considering suicide, was sentenced in Minnesota Wednesday 4 May. William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted in March over the deaths of a 32-year-old man from England and an 18-year-old Canadian woman.
The judge yesterday ordered him to serve 320 days in prison, then in an unusual twist, to return to prison for two days every year for 10 years, on the anniversaries of the deaths of his victims. He was ordered not to have access to the Internet except for his new job as a trucker. He had been working in a nursing home.
The families of the victims expressed disappointment with the sentences: Melchert-Dinkel had faced up to 15 years in prison for assisting suicides.
The judge said that Melchert-Dinkel’s actions were not alone responsible for the deaths, but they played a role. He posed as a female nurse online and he has admitted to taking part in online suicide chats and he signed fake suicide pacts. He told the court he believed at least five of those people killed themselves.
Links to other sites: Newsninemsn, Pioneer Press
Theft and threats out of the way, Zurich turns to bank secrecy law violations to jail former banker
Rudolf Elmer at a press conference in Zurich 19 January
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Rudolf Elmer was arrested again in Zurich Wednesday evening, shortly after being handed a suspended sentence. Elmer had a quick court hearing and sentencing Wednesday 19 January, for threatening his former employer, Bank Julius Baer, and for stealing data from the bank in 2002, which he then gave to WikiLeaks and others in 2008. He was widely reported to have been charged with breaking bank secrecy laws, not in fact the case.
Zurich police say he was taken into custody again late Wednesday on suspicion of breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws after he publicly handed two disks with data to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London, last weekend, stating that they contained bank data. Elmer also said publicly, during his day in court Wednesday, that he had handed over to bank data to tax authorities and media groups.
NZZ reports that the cantonal prosecutor has until Friday evening to decide if Elmer will be charged.
Privacy protection is the umbrella for bank secrecy, professional secrecy laws
Swiss bank secrecy laws are part of a group of privacy protection that also cover data protection in the broader sense, limiting, for example, Google Street View’s right to film and sending to jail, as well as professional secrecy laws. The long-running nuclear proliferation Tinner case in Switzerland has involved questions about professional secrecy being violated.
Elmer might be charged under Article 47 of the civil code which requires bankers to protect the confidentiality of clients’ data. It also allows for a subsequent charge of violating professional secrecy:
Bouches-du-Rhône, France (GenevaLunch) - The value of their theft has risen from CHF8 million to CHF21m in the six years since a group of men stole 668 kg of gold, thanks to the soaring gld market, according to TSR. The haul has never been found. The five men, from Corsica, are accused of stealing the gold from the head offices of Metalor in Marin, canton Neuchatel, in January 2004. The prosecutor in the French court is asking for sentences ranging from seven to 22 years, with 18-20 years for the man behind the scheme and 22 years for another who is a repeat offender.
Update 2 22:50 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Reports were published Tuesday evening 1 December by several international news agencies that two Swiss businessmen, Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani, have been sentenced to 16 months in prison and fined $1,671 each by a Libyan court. Reuters received an e-mail confirmation from the Swiss foreign affairs ministry late Tuesday night confirming the news. The men have been sentenced on visa irregularities charges, according to the Swiss spokesman, Reuters reports. They are currently both at the Swiss Embassy. The two have been unable to leave the country since July 2008, shortly after Hannibal Qadaffi, the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested in Geneva for abusing his staff at a hotel. The arrest sparked a diplomatic row which has not been resolved, and the new sentences could strain tensions even further.
The two men, in Libya on business at the time of their arrest, were at the centre of intense negotiations in August 2009, when Muammar Qadaffi appears to have promised to help release them soon. Agencies reporting the story quote an unnamed Libyan official who also says the men face another trial, but no details were provided.
TSR, Swiss public television, early Tuesday evening reported that an official at ABB, the multinational that employs Goeldi, confirmed to the station that the men had been sentenced.
Update 16 September Yverdon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The mother of a young child who fell out of a window and died while she was out partying has been given a six month suspended sentence for negligent homicide. The state prosecutor had asked for a 10-month prison sentence plus two years suspended sentence in the trial of a 24-year-old woman who left her three-year-old daughter alone while she went out for most of the night with friends. The child died in December 2006 after falling out of a six-storey kitchen window. She had managed to pull a chair up to the window, which had been left open, and climb out, then fell to her death.
Zurich, Switzerland and Miami, Florida (GenevaLunch) – Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced Friday in Miami, Florida, USA to three years and four months in prison plus a $30,000 fine and three years on probation following his prison term. He is the former UBS banker whose revelations to the IRS, the US tax authority, set off an investigation that led to bank UBS being taken to court and the US and Switzerland negotiating a treaty whereby the Swiss government will authorize the bank to release details of more than 4,000 client accounts. Full story
Fribourg, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A court in Fribourg 17 March sentenced six youths for their part in a gang rape case that is one of a series of crimes in three locations over several months. The crimes include assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, theft and refusing to come to the aid of an injured person, a handicapped man.
This much is clear: OJ Simpson, fallen football hero who got away with (his ex-wife’s) murder, has a long stretch in prison ahead of him, possibly up to 33 years, but he becomes eligible for parole in nine years. What is less clear, judging by big media reports that vary hugely, is the extent to which he’s a bad guy. The Chicago Tribune wrote a tear-jerker, Reuters paints him a little less sympathetically and quotes the sentencing judge as saying, “”While at this case bail hearing, I said to Mr Simpson that I didn’t know if he was arrogant or ignorant or both. Then during the trial and through this proceeding, I got the answer: it was both.” The UK’s Guardian takes a cooler, America-hoped-for-it approach.
