_ 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
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