murder by proxy.
"_ Prof. Jonez _" wrote:
> LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman
> Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social
> network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.
>
> Megan Meier, 13, hanged herself in her bedroom after being targeted in a MySpace
> hoax.
>
> Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis is said to have helped create a false-identity
> MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a
> 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Josh didn't exist.
>
> Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages,
> including one stating the world would be better off without her.
>
> Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office,
> called the case heart-rending.
>
> "The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go
> before they must stop. They exploited a young girl's weaknesses," Hernandez
> said. "Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she's responsible
> for her actions."
>
> Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing
> protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict
> emotional distress on the girl.
>
> Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.
>
> U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said this was the first time the federal statute
> on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It
> has been used in the past to address hacking.
>
> "This was a tragedy that did not have to happen," O'Brien said.
>
> Both the girl and MySpace are named as victims in the case, he said.
>
> Don't Miss
> a.. Read the indictment (pdf)
> MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills, California-based Fox Interactive Media
> Inc., which is owned by News Corp. The indictment noted that MySpace computer
> servers are located in Los Angeles County.
>
> Due to juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney's office said, the indictment
> refers to the girl as M.T.M.
>
> FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case, Hernandez said.
>
> Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in
> prison.
>
> Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and then moved to Los Angeles for trial.
>
> The indictment says MySpace members agree to abide by terms of service that
> include, among other things, not promoting information they know to be false or
> misleading; soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18 and not
> using information gathered from the Web site to "harass, abuse or harm other
> people."
>
> Drew and others who were not named conspired to violate the service terms from
> about September 2006 to mid-October that year, according to the indictment. It
> alleges that they registered as a MySpace member under a phony name and used the
> account to obtain information on the girl.
>
> Drew and her coconspirators "used the information obtained over the MySpace
> computer system to torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass the juvenile
> MySpace member," the indictment charged.
>
> After the girl killed herself, Drew and the others deleted the information for
> the account, the indictment said.
>
> Last month, an employee of Drew's, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good
> Morning America" that she created the false MySpace profile but that Drew wrote
> some of the messages to Megan.
>
> Grills said Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what
> Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.
>
> Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better
> place without her. The message was supposed to end the online relationship with
> "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.
>
> "I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid
> of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show.
>
> Megan's death was investigated by Missouri authorities, but no state charges
> were filed because no laws appeared to apply to the case
>
> [Image]
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