"jerry warner" <"warne(ns)"@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:482D14F8.8AC29744@mchsi.com...
> murder by proxy.
Wrong.
>
>> 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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240019. Re: => Federal Criminal Indictment for Violating MySpace TOS <= Mom indicted in deadly MySpace hoa
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