Posted on 07/02/2009 8:29:20 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Los Angeles, CA (AHN) - Lori Drew, a mother convicted last year for misdemeanor charges stemming from allegations that she posed as a boy and caused the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, will be sentenced on Thursday.
Drew was charged in May 2008 on a four-count indictment. She was convicted in November the same year of three counts, which were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.
The jury could not decide on the charge of criminal conspiracy, which carries a maximum of five years in prison.
Virtually ending the most high-profile case of cyber-bullying, the conviction had been a disappointment to a number of bloggers and proponents of stronger protections against online harassment.
Federal prosecutors said Drew had opened an account on the social networking site MySpace under the name "Josh Evans." She proceeded, together with her daughter and a teenage employee, Ashley Grills, to " feign romantic interest" for Megan.
The 50-year-old mother was allegedly seeking information to retaliate against Megan's spreading rumors about her daughter.
"After approximately four weeks of flirtatious communications," according to the FBI, Drew spurned Megan and told her the world would be a better place without her via the fake MySpace account. Within an hour after those messages, Megan hanged herself in her room.
Drew faces up to three years in prison. She was due receive her sentence in May, but defense attorneys had filed a motion to dismiss the case.
Drew's and Megan's families both lived in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri but the case was filed in Los Angeles, where MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills.
At the of Megan's death, MySpace was the most visited site in the nation as well as the most popular social networking site, gaining its 100 millionth account August that year.
It’s called “cyberbullying” except in the case of NewsCorp owned Myspace. I suppose under the erronous belief that NewsCorp is conservative (their execs endorsed Kerry in 2008 and Murdoch gave to Hillary’s senate campaign).
The focus should be on the woman’s actions, not the forum in which the bullying took place. She posed as a minor and badgered a child. She sought the child’s trust and then turned vicious and conviced the child that the world would be a better place without her.
At the end of the trail and verdict the judge opined that the case should never have been brought.
So I guess she’ll get a commendation instead of a sentence.
Oops. make that.
at the end of the TRIAL
I agree. You can as easily kill someone with a Number 2 pencil as you can a shotgun.
It’s the end result that matters.
The woman who did what she did to that girl is a vile, immature, disgusting pig of a person.
She is a sick freak for sure. She reminds me of Fred Phelps in appearance and deviancy. It took me some fishing around to find someone this reviled and some come to mind: Charles Manson, Fred Phelps, Eric Harris/Dylan Klebold, and Osama bin Laden.
Yahoo, facebook, Gmail, etc don’t get blamed in such matters.
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