Rutgers U. student and musician Tyler Clementi began his career at the University as part of the Class of 2014 just one month ago, but after a series of events last week at Davidson Hall, the 18-year-old’s life came to an end.

Attorney Paul Mainardi, who represents the Clementi family, issued a statement on its behalf.

“The family is heartbroken beyond words,” Mainardi said. “They respectfully request that they be given time to grieve their great loss and that their privacy at this painful time be respected by all.”

University President Richard L. McCormick, who spoke with Clementi’s parents to extend his own sympathies as well as the University’s, expressed a similar sentiment. “We grieve for him and for his family, friends and classmates as they deal with the tragic loss of a gifted young man who was a strong student and a highly accomplished musician,” he said. “We will continue to respect the family’s request for privacy.” McCormick urged the University community to honor Clementi’s life with civility, dignity, compassion and respect for one another.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office is considering the motives behind an alleged Internet transmission of a personal encounter that involved Clementi, who committed suicide last week.

Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River Sept. 22, according to a statement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. An autopsy of the body, which was found yesterday, showed that he died of drowning and blunt impact injury to the torso, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Dharun Ravi and Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy first-year student Molly Wei are charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy after allegedly recording Clementi’s involvement in sexual acts with another male in his room in Davidson Hall C on Busch campus, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said.

Ravi faces two additional charges for attempting to watch and transmit similar footage involving Clementi on a different date.

“Now that two individuals have been charged with invasion of privacy, we will be making every effort to assess whether bias played a role in the incident, and, if so, we will bring appropriate charges,” Kaplan said.

Under the state’s statutes, it is a fourth-degree crime to view images depicting nudity or sexual contact involving another individual without that person’s consent and a third-degree crime to transmit or distribute them.

The penalty for conviction of a third-degree offense can include a prison term of up to five years.

Ravi and Wei have both been released, he said. The date for a court hearing has not yet been set.

The investigation is ongoing, the prosecutor’s office said.

Although no official source has purported that a relationship between the two exists, a message board thread on justusboys.com, an online community for homosexual males, features posts about scenarios similar to those that took place last week in Davidson Hall, according to screenshots of the site on gawker.com.

Under the alias “cit2mo,” a member of the community posted a message in reaction to his roommate spying on him on Sept. 21, according to the website. That and other posts described events that paralleled those involving Clementi and Ravi.

According to the posts, “cit2mo” was upset that his roommate had used a webcam to spy on him and a guest on two separate nights last week. He then filled out a request for a room change so that he could move to a new location.

“I ran to the nearest [resident assistant] and set this thing in motion,” he wrote on Sept. 22, after observing posts about the occurrences his roommate put on Twitter.

A later post from “cit2mo” indicated that the RA seemed to take it seriously when he received an e-mail from “cit2mo” regarding the incident, according to the posts.

University spokesman Greg Trevor did not comment on the incidents involving Clementi specifically, but he did say that for the University, meeting students’ housing needs is a priority.

“The University does have well-established procedures in place to deal with requests for residents to switch roommates,” he said. “If a resident requests a new roommate, the staff makes every effort to accommodate that request as soon as possible.”