A federal grand jury has issued a subpoena to MySpace.com in a probe stemming from the suicide of a Missouri teenager who received cruel messages on the networking site that turned out to be a hoax, a newspaper reported.
Federal prosecutors are considering charging a mother in the girl’s neighborhood with defrauding MySpace by creating a false account that she, her daughter and a teenage employee used to fool 13-year-old Megan Meier into believing she was communicating with a 16-year-old boy, the Los Angeles Times said Tuesday on its Web site, citing unidentified sources.
It said its sources insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
Megan, of suburban St. Louis, hanged herself in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages from the fictional boy she had befriended online, including one saying the world would be better off without her.
The neighborhood woman, Lori Drew, has denied creating the account but acknowledged being aware of it. She also has denied sending any messages to Megan or being aware of the unkind messages.
Prosecutors in Missouri declined to charge anyone because no laws appeared to apply to the case.
LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman on Thursday over an alleged role in a MySpace online hoax played on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.
Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis was indicted on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.
Drew allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact neighbor Megan Meier who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.
Meier hanged herself in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.
Drew, 49, has denied creating the account and sending messages to Megan.
MySpace is based in Beverly Hills. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los Angeles County.
Because of juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney’s office said, the indictment refers to the girl as M.T.M.
Each count in the indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.
Grills also claimed Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew’s daughter, who was a former friend of Megan’s.
Grills said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her, which 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.
Obviously the fruitful work of prosecutors who’ve been determined to nail the bitch on something. Probably been raking the statutes and case law to find some way to put the nasty cow up against the wall.
Yeah I hurd about this story a while back ago, kinda sad but pathetic at the same time.
She killed herself simply because she though this boy didn’t like her anymore.
I’m not saying it was right to do it to a girl who’s aready depressed, but kind of a silly thing to kill yourself over, especually as it’s not even in real life, it’s over the internet.
Well, some people might not agree with it, but I’m glad that she got indicted. What she did was a pretty shitty thing to do. The girl shouldn’t have killed herself, but she was a depressed little kid, and the adult in the situation, Lori, set out to make her feel bad. Maybe the ruling will prevent situations like this in the future.
Yeah I hurd about this story a while back ago, kinda sad but pathetic at the same time.
She killed herself simply because she though this boy didn’t like her anymore.
I’m not saying it was right to do it to a girl who’s aready depressed, but kind of a silly thing to kill yourself over, especually as it’s not even in real life, it’s over the internet.
To a 13 year old girl, it could be devastating....
Everything’s a big drama at that age…
I was a 13 year old girl ~ 34 years ago. It was terrible.
Well, some people might not agree with it, but I’m glad that she got indicted. What she did was a pretty shitty thing to do. The girl shouldn’t have killed herself, but she was a depressed little kid, and the adult in the situation, Lori, set out to make her feel bad. Maybe the ruling will prevent situations like this in the future.
What she did was awful and mean. But, it didn’t violate any laws or the girl’s rights. People have a right to say mean things to you, even if they don’t mean it.
If people couldn’t say mean things to each other, the internet couldn’t exist!
It’s very hard to say this is harrassment, like in the sense of crank phone calls, either, because being the guy’s friend on Myspace is something she had to take an active part in.
