Lori Drew indicted in deadly MySpace hoax
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor girl who then committed suicide.
Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl.
Drew allegedly helped create a MySpace account on false premises to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, who turned out not to exist.
Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.
Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.
MySpace is based in Beverly Hills. 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.
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.
Looks like there will be some form of justice for Megan after all. This is the kind of case that really pisses me off because of two things.
- I find it disgusting to prey on vulnurable depressed people, especially children, this makes it worse. It’s just sick on so many levels.
- Lori needs to be punished because it needs to be shown that not only men are predators. How many news stories can I read on Fark.com about the latest hot teacher who had “innapropriate conduct” with a student. Had it been a man on a female student he would have been accused of beeing a vicious child raping monster. It needs to be clear that women can also be vicious and vindictive and completly batshit insane and that not just men are predators.
Damn this story pisses me off. Anyway. I’m just glad to see Megan might get some justice in the end.
Previously on the same story:
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