Posted on 11/26/2008 6:20:53 PM PST by Oyarsa
Conviction on lesser charges in MySpace case Mother guilty of misdemeanor charges in cyber-bullying in which girl died
updated 4:38 p.m. CT, Wed., Nov. 26, 2008 A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyberbullying case was convicted Wednesday of only three minor offenses for her role in a mean-spirited Internet hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.
The federal jury could not reach a verdict on the main charge against 49-year-old Lori Drew — conspiracy — and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm.
Instead, the panel found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor offenses of accessing computers without authorization. Each count is punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Drew could have gotten 20 years if convicted of the four original charges.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
This woman is beneath contempt, but that, by itself, doesn’t make her a criminal.
On the plus side, she has been shunned by everyone she knows and forced out of business (she ran a cheap advertising business, which has gone belly-up in the wake of a boycott). It’s only a matter of time before she’s forced to move.
Three misdemeanors, no priors. Most likely that’ll be thirty days and ten thousand bucks plus a year’s probation, during which she has to promise not to push anybody else over the edge.
Loss of moral compass. Welcome to the New America.
Wonder what has happened to the case of the young lad who recently became ‘an hero’ in front of a webcam? Bless his family.
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/columnists/doubletake/jones081126.asp?A=INT&S=Internet&T=News&O=C
Not entirely. Lori Drew was forced to move (I looked it up, she managed to sell her house), driven into bankruptsy, and scorned by everyone she knows. In fact, she’s going to have to go into hiding for a while until this starts to blow over. Even if she gets no jail time, she’ll pay a hefty fine.
It’s not like people approve of what she’s done.
RE :the panel found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor offenses of accessing computers without authorization
Scary laws.
What a waste of time and taxpayer money prosecuting.
them damn bullies all need to be locked up. /sarc Unfortunate the girl hung herself. She had a lot of problems but who can prove what made her hang.
I was referring to her actions as a loss of moral compass in the new america. Add this to all the PC bull, abortion, gay marriage, sex selling everything, trash tv, paris hiltons brigade, reality tv, take God out of everywhere, corporate and governmental greed and corruption, terrorism in the name of religion,and now a socialistic president elect. Welcome to the NEW AMERICA. I am not bitter, mind you, I have just wrapped myself tighter in the flag and am clinging tighter to my gun while I await the next ride of Paul Revere :) At least her town seems to be awaiting his ride as well.
I think you're right, but then she was also fully aware that the girl who committed suicide was terribly unstable to begin with. She was aware she was on medications for depression and was in therapy. If that isn't enough to convict in a criminal case, it certainly is enough for a huge civil judgment, though I'm sure the family doesn't really have much left. Still, if I were the family of the dead girl, I'd make it my life mission to hound these people to the ends of the earth, and make everyone they associate with aware of what they've done. I'd do everything short of violence to make their lives miserable. (at one point I would have included violence as well, but I've calmed down)
Mark
If adults can be convicted as felons of using the advantage of their years and experience to corrupt a child sexually, then why should we not expect them to be punished on those same terms when they corrupt a child to harm themselves, in this case, kill themselves?
I say her continued action does make her a criminal.
I’m glad the mangy trollop was convicted, and hope she gets her three years at club Fed. With any luck, she will annoy some drug dealer and gain the appropriate consequences.
However, all is not lost. Since she has already declared bankruptcy, and since the burden of proof for a criminal conviction is greater than for a civil suit, the family should now file a wrongful death lawsuit. Garnish every dime she gets. And that includes her prison account, too.
Yes, I do have a nasty, vindictive nature. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Anybody who has an account on YouTube, Facebook, or anywhere else where they used a fake name, gave a fake address, made up a false birthdate, can now be charged with a misdemeanor and thrown in jail for a year.
What they found was that her actual treatment of the dead girl was not criminal.
But they HAD to punish her, so they got her for doing things that almost every person using the internet does.
The girl that killed herself had harassed and ridiculed the woman’s daughter. If the woman’s daughter had been unstable, we’d be talking about how that other girl killed her by being evil to her.
But because the woman’s daughter was able to cope with the treatment, everybody forgets what started this whole thing — a mother who wanted to teach a teenager a lesson about NOT mistreating her daughter.
Do you think how she went about that was ok?
She was childish. But she had already gone to the kid’s mother, and gotten nowhere. The girl was supposed to be banned from the internet, but obviously was still using it.
At first, the mother was trying to get evidence that the girl was still circulating false rumors about her daughter. The guy persona was supposed to get her trust. Then she got the idea to give her a “taste of her own medicince”.
If the girl hadn’t killed herself, I doubt the world would have hated the woman. And when the girl killed herself, it was after the mother had quit already, and apparently was because of something the other girl’s mother said to her, not specifically the hoax (it had to do with the hoax).
The other problem was that some teens got into the act on that same web page, and they were cruel, as kids often are.
But the mother has gotten blamed for everything.
No, the mother shouldn’t have done what she did. But there is no evidence the mother had any intention, or any idea, that what she was doing was going to lead to such a tragic result.
There was just a CSI on where a guy got charged with negligent homicide. He got tired of boys using a baseball bat to smash his mailbox, so he built a mailbox out of concrete, hoping the kids would hit it and “learn a lesson”.
The kids came along, hit the concrete with a bat, the bat broke, hit the driver, who lost control and smashed into a tree, killing the kids.
Now, I don’t see why that guy should get charged with a crime. But what he did was childish.
I'm not childish, but I want to know how to make a concrete mail box. Are there plans on the internet? ;~))
BTW. There was a kid killed in my area when he was hanging out the window laughing after he smashed a mail box with a bat when the next mail box down the street smashed his head.
Not laughing about a teenager getting killed for doing stupid stuff (I did plenty myself) but as they say, "stuff" happens. Most of us were are lucky enough to survive without permanent injury. Sadly, some aren't.
After her jail time I hope she finds a good third world hell hole to go to.
The woman is a jerk, but don’t be surprised if the appeals court reverses the conviction.
“accessing computers without authorization”
Signing onto a web service with a name that was not her own.
Web anonymity is the real target, hence all the attention to the case.
If we lose web anonymity, we all become Joe the Plumber or any of several other people who stand up and voice an opinion.
So log in with a name not your own, face a fine and year in jail.
This is backwards, she should have been convicted for harassment using the existing wire communication laws.
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