'Star Wars Kid' cuts a deal with his tormentors

the globe and mail dot com ^ | 7-2006 | TU THANH HA

[doug from upland]

'Star Wars Kid' cuts a deal with his tormentors TU THANH HA

From Friday's Globe and Mail

TROIS-RIVIÈRES, QUE. — As Ghyslain Raza recalled, whenever he walked by his high school's common areas, other students would jump on tables and chant, "Star Wars Kid! Star Wars Kid!"

There would be a commotion as they shouted and poked at him, trying to get a reaction. "It was simply unbearable," he said.

An otherwise ordinary teen in this Quebec small town, Mr. Raza had become a worldwide object of ridicule when schoolmates put on the Internet a video of him clumsily pretending to be a Star Wars character.

Three years later, Mr. Raza and his parents this week reached an out-of-court settlement with the families of three former schoolmates they had sued for $351,000 in damages.

Related to this article Latest Comments Comments are closed for this story The settlement annuls a civil trial set to begin on Monday that would have scrutinized one of the world's first and most-publicized cases of cyber-bullying.

However, documents filed in the case at the Trois-Rivières courthouse give new details about how a mean-spirited high-school prank turned into a global Internet cause célèbre.

Specifics of the settlement remain confidential.

Lawyers for the three schoolmates had suffered a setback after they were not allowed to introduce as evidence a transcript of a phone conversation Mr. Raza had with a blogger, Jishnu Mukerji.

The blogger had posted a transcript of the exchange on the Internet.

Conducted a month after the video and parodies of it began circulating, the conversation has Mr. Raza calling the spoofs "interesting" but not expressing much distress.

However, a judge rejected a bid to table a transcript of the chat and Mr. Mukerji was not available to testify.

The documents include transcripts of examinations under oath of Mr. Raza and of three students accused of circulating the video, Michaël Caron, Jérôme Laflamme and Jean-Michel Rheault.

(Proceedings against a fourth, François Labarre, were dropped after Mr. Raza acknowledged that the allegations against that student were based on hearsay.)

In the transcripts, Mr. Raza said the experience left him unable to attend school.

"It was simply unbearable, totally. It was impossible to attend class," Mr. Raza said.

He said the situation left him feeling drained of energy, and that he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit.

He said he was diagnosed with depression by a pedopsychiatrist at Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital and his lawyers, in their fillings, said they wanted to have a psychiatrist and a psychologist testify, along with producing his medical file.

Under questioning, Mr. Laflamme and Mr. Rheault conceded their role in spreading a video that Mr. Raza, then 15, had made of himself and left on a shelf in the school TV studio.

Mr. Laflamme said he discovered the tape in April of 2003, when he took school equipment to film a varsity football game.

He showed the tape to Mr. Rheault, who made a copy of it.

"I thought it'd be an interesting prank . . . I wanted Ghyslain to know what I knew of him, what I had seen," Mr. Laflamme said.

"All I did was take the cassette, digitize it on the studio computer to pull a joke on Ghyslain. After that, I had nothing to do with it," Mr. Rheault said he later told the school principal after the controversy erupted.

He said that when a school counsellor confronted him about Mr. Raza's misfortunes, he replied, "It's no fun what happened here, but that's the problem with the Internet. Things travel fast."

Mr. Caron, who says he didn't even know the two other pranksters, said in examination that as the tape was being e-mailed among students, he created a website and posted the video on it.

According to court filings, the video first appeared on the Internet on the evening of April 14, 2003.

About a month later, one U.S. Web blog that had posted the video said it had been downloaded 1.1 million times already.

Mr. Raza's lawyer said in a court filing that the video was so widely circulated that one Internet site solely dedicated to the two-minute clip recorded 76 million visits by October, 2004.

Mr. Raza conceded in his examination that he didn't express much anguish when he spoke to Mr. Mukerji in May of 2003 about his sudden fame.

He said he was cautious because "everything I said was textually reported on the Internet. I signalled in more or less subtle fashion my unhappiness."

Mr. Raza -- who appears on the video as a chubby, ungainly young man -- recalled how other students got on tables and chanted taunts at him. "There was about 100 people in those halls. It was total chaos . . . Any opportunity was good enough to shout 'Star Wars!' "

He said in one class, where a document was shown through a projector, other students scrolled the text, mimicking the opening of the movie, as they sang the Star Wars theme.

And whenever he was in a public place, he said, strangers would call to him.

"Hey! It's Ghyslain Raza! Star Wars Kid, hey!"

He left the school and eventually, got a private tutor.

No one would comment yesterday about the settlement, including whether it included monetary compensation.

However, previous proceedings in the case had included discussions about whether the families of the three defendants had liability insurance.

The families of the three defendants have varying financial situations, court documents suggest. Mr. Caron's court filings include a letter from an insurer refusing to provide liability insurance coverage, whereas Mr. Laflamme says in his examination that his father had savings of $500,000 from an inheritance.

[SoldierDad]

The torment I endured drove me from school. Having three to five people on nearly a daily basis attempting to beat me up was more that I could handle. I dropped out of high school three months into my Junior year. As a result I lost 10 years of potential employment opportunities, and wound up drifting from job to job. I finally pulled my self up, went to a Jr. College and then a University. I now have a Master's degree and work as a School Psychologist. Now I am trying to help other students to avoid the life altering events I endured. Funny how life turns out.

[stinkerpot65]

One of these days we will have a major war like WWII where we need every man available, expcept we won't have many men, just fat little twerps like this one.

[packrat35]

Sad thing,most of the people posting today seem to want that.

[Jaysun]

Got me stumped. Wish you were nearby (Penna) so I could send you a 2lb container and you could taste it for yourself, or watch you make it and figure out what the heck happened...

Chicken broth, cream, and I think it was butternut squash. As for the shell, I liquefied it with everything else. After reading over your page again I saw that I was to discard it. Oh well. I'm trying to keep my wife and I from starving to death.

We just had a baby girl and she's (wife) running on fumes. So for tonight I decided to stick with what I know - I've been smoking a 15 pound beef brisket since early this morning. I grew up in Texas and learned how to cook a brisket that'll make you slap your Momma.

Here's me and the culprit. Her name's Marion, shown here at 2 days old.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

Did you clean out all the seeds and stringy stuff before roasting and pureeing, J?

I sent your comments to a half-dozen chefs I used to work with in NYC, and they're aghast at your results and comments. Got us all stunned...

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

He said the situation left him feeling drained of energy, and that he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit.

please.. he was lifting bigmacs more than he was weights

[eyespysomething]

Drunken Boxing.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

"poutine"? What's that, b?

[doug from upland]

Thanks for sharing your story. Bullies are despicable.

[SoldierDad]

That is a very precious gift. Enjoy your daughter every minute.

[SoldierDad]

I'm sure my story is not unique. I wish parents wouldn't tolerate their children becoming bullies in the first place.

[doug from upland]

The antidote to bullies --

[billorites]

"poutine"? What's that, b?

It's a very popular French-Canadian dish. You see it on every menu in Quebec.
French fries, gravy and cheese curds.
Actually, it's pretty good if not exactly heart healthy.
I won't be putting the recipe on my homepage though.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

What a little cutie! No, NOT you, J!

"As for the shell, I liquefied it with everything else"

There's the problem, J. The shell is coated with a waxy substance to get it to market without damage or bruising. It'd be like frying a waxy candle for a hot dog bun. YUK!

And here's what butternut squash look like (scroll down):

http://www.whatscookingamerica.net/squash.htm

Next time, PLEASE don't eat the shell; just the wonderful meat inside. You don't eat watermelon or cantelope rinds, do you?

What state are you in? Maybe I could express a 2-3lb tub to you for sampling...

[freedumb2003]

I've been scr*wed! I was called much worst than this when I was a child, and I received no compensation from my tormentors.

I was thinking the same thing. If my Mom had sued for what I suffered, based on this case, I would be almost as rich as Gates.

I still don't like bullies but at least I learned how to deal with them.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> "poutine"? What's that, b?

It's a uniquely French Canadian abomination (thank God!)

French fries, covered in cheese curds and sometimes gravy. Mega-cholesterol, guaranteed to clog up your arteries.

Outside Quebec, Canadians skip the cheese curds and go with just the fries and gravy as the national Ice Hockey snack -- MMMMMMmm-mmmm!

(Belgians skip both, and go with French Fries and mayonnaise. I don't know where they learned *that* trick from).

[butternut_squash_bisque]

I don't know about the 'cheese curds', but I'd go for the fries and gravy. Yum, b. I eat that dish all the time here in Penna. Waffles and turkey gravy, biscuits and beef gravy, stuffing and gravy... ANYTHING and gravy!

[DieHard the Hunter]

> I disagree, I asked them for more. Sad, that some people feel that they should be paid if their feelings get hurt.

Ever been bullied?

Some of us are strong enough to overcome, either by beating their bully to a fine pulp (like I did) or rising above it and prospering anyway (I've heard of this done in Legend, never met anyone who has done it).

And some commit suicide. I know of two people who took this way out.

This kid has chosen a Third Way, which is to sue the b*stards. Goodon'im, if that works it is a salutory lesson to encourage the others.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

"...French Fries and mayonnaise..."

I gotta try that, sometime, D.

It took me almost a year to get used to mayo on my cheeseburgers, and now I love it, as an aside from ketchup or mustard.

[SoldierDad]

Plus, I have never allowed them to control my life or cause me to not become successful. I could have used my experiences as an excuse. Instead I allowed them to inspire me to help others.