The second principle issue addressed in State v. Ravi was whether a defendant is entitled to a judgment of acquittal on a charge of hindering one’s own apprehension under 2C:29-3b(3) when there is no evidence that he used any force, intimidation, or deception to prevent a person’s testimony. The answer is “yes.”
The Court held in relevant part that “The hindering apprehension charge reflected in Count 12 is predicated on the texts exchanged between M.W. and defendant on September 23, 2010. On that day, M.W. was picked up by Rutgers University Detective Rager and Middlesex County Prosecutor Investigator Daniewicz and transported to the Rutgers Police Department for questioning.
Counts 12 and 14 were both based on the text exchange that occurred between defendant and M.W. on September 23, 2010, while M.W. was in an interrogation room at the Rutgers Police Department. We have described in detail the confluence of events that led defendant to text M.W. while she was still in the headquarters of the University Police. The record shows, and the State does not dispute, that the exchange of text messages between M.W. and defendant occurred after M.W. had given her statement to the law enforcement investigators.
Through these text messages, defendant asked M.W. what she had told the police and suggested that she characterize what he did to his laptop webcam as merely “messing around with the camera.” According to defendant, T.C. “wanted to have a friend over and he didn’t realize they wanted to be all private.” However, M.W. made clear to defendant that she had told the police interrogators all that occurred on Sunday night, September 19, 2010
Defendant then brought up the events of Tuesday night, September 21, 2010 and suggested that M.W. tell the investigators: “I turned off my computer that day.” M.W. replied that she did not know anything about Tuesday night. Again, quoting her actual words, M.W. stated, “Idk whT happened that day.”