Bitchy, old, sloth lady cleared of fleony in Myspace suicide

[Twerp128]

LOS ANGELES ? Lori Drew, the 49-year-old woman charged in the first federal cyberbullying case, was cleared of felony computer-hacking charges by a jury Wednesday morning, but convicted of three misdemeanors. The jury deadlocked on a remaining felony charge of conspiracy.

After just over a day of deliberation, the six-man, six-woman jury acquitted Drew of three felony charges of violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, in an emotionally charged case that stemmed from a 2006 MySpace hoax targeting a 13-year-old girl, who later committed suicide.

Tina Meier, the mother of the girl, shook her head silently from the gallery as the verdict was read.

Prosecutors claimed Drew and others obtained unauthorized access to MySpace by creating a fake profile for a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans." The account was used to flirt with, and then reject, 13-year-old old Megan Meier. The case hinged on the government's novel argument that violating MySpace's terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking, and Drew faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison for each charge.

But on Wednesday, jurors found Drew guilty only of three counts of gaining unauthorized access to MySpace for the purpose of obtaining information on Megan Meier ? misdemeanors that potentially carry up to a year in prison, but most likely will result in no time in custody. The jury unanimously rejected the three felony computer hacking charges that alleged the unauthorized access was part of a scheme to intentionally inflict emotional distress on Megan.

U.S. District Judge George Wu has not yet ruled on a defense motion that, if granted, would overturn even the misdemeanors for lack of evidence, and result in a judgment of acquittal. It's also unclear whether the government will seek a new trial on the deadlocked conspiracy charge.

The slap-on-the-wrist verdict is a partial rebuke to federal prosecutors, who chose to charge Drew federally even after authorities in Missouri ? where the hoax unfolded ? found that Drew's behavior did not violate any state laws at the time. Some legal experts and civil libertarians decried the prosecution as an abuse of computer-crime laws.

Underscoring the importance of the high-profile case to the government, Thomas O'Brien, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, personally oversaw the prosecution and handled some of the witness testimony himself. O'Brien was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2007 to oversee the 266 federal prosecutors in the second-largest U.S. Attorney's office in the country.

The verdict followed three days of testimony by 15 witnesses.

The indictment charged that in September 2006 Drew conspired to create the Josh Evans account with her then 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and a then-18-year-old employee and family friend named Ashley Grills, for the purpose of inflicting psychological harm on Meier.

Prosecutors alleged that Drew and the two others used the profile to lure Megan into an online relationship with "Josh" to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter online. Midway through the ruse, prosecutors said Drew changed the plan and wanted to print out the correspondence between Megan and the fake boy in order to confront her with the pages in public and humiliate her.

That confrontation never occurred. But after "Josh" turned on Megan and told her he wanted to sever their relationship, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom in October 2006.

Neighbors in O'Fallon, Missouri, the small town where the Drews and Meiers lived four houses away from each other, turned on Drew when her supposed complicity in the hoax emerged. They called her a murderer, Lori Drew's father testified Monday.

A year after Megan's death, her great-aunt Vicki Dunn contacted a local newspaper columnist who wrote about the case but didn't identify Drew in the article, since she hadn't been charged with any crime. The piece was picked up by numerous publications, sparking a frenzy among bloggers and others, who outed Drew's name and published her address and phone number online.

The Drews and their business associates received harassing calls and death threats. Sarah Drew testified that her school asked her to leave after officials concluded they could not control the bullying she was receiving from other students. A former business associate of Drew testified that a parent at her child's school asked her why she did business with a "murderer."

Publicity over the suicide prompted county prosecutors to review the case to determine if charges could be filed against Drew, but they were stymied by the fact that there was no criminal law addressing the cyberbullying that Drew was alleged to have committed.

That's when prosecutors in Los Angeles sought to indict Drew, charging her with unauthorized access to MySpace's computers, using a federal anti-hacking statute known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Prosecutors charged that Drew was guilty of the crime by violating MySpace's terms-of-service agreement when she and her co-conspirators allegedly provided false information to open the account and pose online as the 16-year-old boy.

MySpace's user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors claimed.

The novel use of the statute was criticized by numerous legal experts who said the case set a "scary" precedent and potentially made a felon out of anyone who violates the terms-of-service of any website.

But testimony in the case offered by prosecution witness Ashley Grills under a grant of immunity showed that nobody involved in the hoax actually read the terms of service. Grills also said that the hoax was her idea, not Drew's, and that it was Grills who created the Josh Evans profile, and later sent the cruel message that tipped the emotionally vulnerable 13-year-old girl into her final, tragic act.

I hope someone breaks her shins.

 

[Dogbert]

The case hinged on the government's novel argument that violating MySpace's terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking...

And that's why it didn't fly. Yes, this lady will go to one of those special layers in hell... but this would have set an extremely awful precedent.

This was actually all happening about twenty minutes from me.

 

[Top Geek]

Sorry, I can't agree. As part of the larger legal picture, it's a good thing this didn't fly. Yes, she is a slimebag for doing this, but can you imagine "violating terms of service" being a crime?

By the way, did you know the terms of service for this forum are that you are required to swim to Antarctica, strip buck naked, and freeze your jewels off? Oh, what's that? You didn't do that? You're under arrest!

See what I mean?

 

[argatoga]

By the way, did you know the terms of service for this forum are that you are required to swim to Antarctica, strip buck naked, and freeze your jewels off? Oh, what's that? You didn't do that? You're under arrest!

Speak for yourself.

Seriously though, while she is a c?nt, she shouldn't go to jail for it. If she can get jailed for this so can scientology protesters and 99% of the Internet population. The girl who killed herself had issues. She may have been pushed over the edge, but she climbed up there.

 

[Top Geek]

The girl who killed herself had issues. She may have been pushed over the edge, but she climbed up there.

Ah, yes, another good point. Sorry, but no one hangs themself solely as a result of one event. The event may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, but for someone to kill themself, there have to be some severe issues leading up to the event.

 

[TC]

She should be charged with something.

If you ran a red light and hit another car, killing the driver, it's your fault. It doesn't really matter that the driver of the other car wasn't wearing a seatbelt, which could have saved his life.

 

[Momentum57]

I have to say for a long time i had a huge crush on BLIND_IO. Then he called me a bad person so I covered my self in Gas and was ready to light myself on fire but then a human said "hey are you fucking dumb if your just pouring gas out send a little over here" I had pre payed so i filled up their tank then they asked me if i wanted to get high. Well my life was saved by drugs over reality of someone online calling me bad. OK not really but at 13 I had no reason to kill myself.

 

[Momentum57]

She should be charged with something.

If you ran a red light and hit another car, killing the driver, it's your fault. It doesn't really matter that the driver of the other car wasn't wearing a seatbelt, which could have saved his life.

Ya charger her with being mean or insensitive. Whats next will it be illegal to not be nice on the internet. As a New Yorker its everyones right to be mean insensitive SOBs.

 

[Dogbert]

If you ran a red light and hit another car, killing the driver, it's your fault. It doesn't really matter that the driver of the other car wasn't wearing a seatbelt, which could have saved his life.

Running a red light is a criminal offense, violating a social networking site's terms of service is not.

 

[TC]

Ya charger her with being mean or insensitive. Whats next will it be illegal to not be nice on the internet. As a New Yorker its everyones right to be mean insensitive SOBs.

Did you even read the story?

Being mean and insensitive isn't really the case. Deceiving someone, tricking them into letting you into their private life, starting a relationship with them, getting emotionally involved with them, and then tearing their entire life to pieces while you laugh and spit on them. That goes far beyond just insulting someone. You can trivialize it all you want, but some people, especially younger people, this sort of thing can be devastating for them. Traumatizing.

But what really bothers me about it is how pathetic we as a society are becoming. We are ever searching for ways to be completely reckless while making excuses to avoid responsibility for our actions. An ever increasing lack of accountability.

Running a red light is a criminal offense, violating a social networking site's terms of service is not.

Running a red light is a traffic violation.

 

[argatoga]

Did you even read the story?

Being mean and insensitive isn't really the case. Deceiving someone, tricking them into letting you into their private life, starting a relationship with them, getting emotionally involved with them, and then tearing their entire life to pieces while you laugh and spit on them. That goes far beyond just insulting someone. You can trivialize it all you want, but some people, especially younger people, this sort of thing can be devastating for them. Traumatizing.

But what really bothers me about it is how pathetic we as a society are becoming. We are ever searching for ways to be completely reckless while making excuses to avoid responsibility for our actions. An ever increasing lack of accountability.


Running a red light is a traffic violation.

Their neighbors are stigmatizing them for this, I don't have a problem with that. But I don't see why the government should get involved. What she did is not breaking any laws. The woman, while horrible, didn't kill the kid, the kid did it herself.

 

[TC]

Their neighbors are stigmatizing them for this, I don't have a problem with that. But I don't see why the government should get involved. What she did is not breaking any laws. The woman, while horrible, didn't kill the kid, the kid did it herself.

Depends on how you look at it. For example, if a jay walker dashes in front of your car and is killed, you'll almost certainly be cleared of any wrong doing. But if you spot a jay walker and purposely swerve to hit him, then you're facing murder charges.

You can do lots of things and not get in any trouble. But if your actions lead to the death of another person, then you're in trouble. You can speed in your car and not worry about anything more then a ticket and a small fine, which you can remove with traffic school, if you want. But if you cause an accident that kills someone, and you're found to be speeding at the time, that could be used against you as criminal negligence or vehicular manslaughter.

You can't always dodge responsibility just because you never intended for anyone to die.

 

[Momentum57]

But what really bothers me about it is how pathetic we as a society are becoming. We are ever searching for ways to be completely reckless while making excuses to avoid responsibility for our actions. An ever increasing lack of accountability.

In middle school there was this girl Lori Quackenbush who was a total mess. Anyways the girls took her to the mall bought her a new outfit then the next day they squirted ketchup on her and asked her if she had her period all day. It was amazingly cruel and is still very funny today. As it happens I just got back from the bars with those girls who did that; they are still hot bitches, and I am sure Lori Quackenbush is still a loser today. Hows that for responsibility, kids can do the cruelest things, you get over it and spread a rumor they have an STD or had an abortion.

See the girl didn't know that this was an older women she just thought it was another kid and kids never take other kids seriously just call each other names.

 

[TC]

In middle school there was this girl Lori Quackenbush who was a total mess. Anyways the girls took her to the mall bought her a new outfit then the next day they squirted ketchup on her and asked her if she had her period all day. It was amazingly cruel and is still very funny today. As it happens I just got back from the bars with those girls who did that; they are still hot bitches, and I am sure Lori Quackenbush is still a loser today. Hows that for responsibility, kids can do the cruelest things, you get over it and spread a rumor they have an STD or had an abortion.

See the girl didn't know that this was an older women she just thought it was another kid and kids never take other kids seriously just call each other names.

Hey, I agree with you there. But some people aren't as good at dealing with this sort of emotional abuse as others. If something like this happened to me, I'd probably have just tried to lodge a baseball bat into the side of their skulls. But then I'd be the one facing charges.

 

[Dogbert]

You can speed in your car and not worry about anything more then a ticket and a small fine, which you can remove with traffic school, if you want. But if you cause an accident that kills someone, and you're found to be speeding at the time, that could be used against you as criminal negligence or vehicular manslaughter.

Are you really going to keep comparing girls being vicious and mean to each other to vehicular manslaughter?

All of this happened over the internet. "Deceiving someone, tricking them into letting you into their private life, starting a relationship with them, getting emotionally involved with them, and then tearing their entire life to pieces while you laugh and spit on them"? Oh no, the girl e-dated someone else, and then found out that someone else was just some hateful bitch. Life over!

And even then, all that happened was someone said and did mean things to someone else. That they killed themselves over it really is, cruel as it sounds, irrelevant as far as the law is concerned. People do much worse things to each other over the internet every day, why is this any different just because some mentally unstable girl killed herself over it?

 

[Momentum57]

It was like something out of a John Hughes film and lori was all sorts of fucked up poor, ugly, and retarded. I don't know how she dealt with it. I do know this I once got caught sneaking out so I said I was going to the the bathroom and started to unbutton to show the teacher I let out a little pee so she freaked out and said to hurry. The next week I heard that this kid on another TEAM in the school had gotten detention for going to the bathroom and never returning to the lunch room. Turned out it was me and he got in trouble for it the detention the parents grounding him all because he was a loser to begin with.

I learned this: when in trouble threaten/and take out your dick

 

[Top Geek]

All of this happened over the internet. "Deceiving someone, tricking them into letting you into their private life, starting a relationship with them, getting emotionally involved with them, and then tearing their entire life to pieces while you laugh and spit on them"? Oh no, the girl e-dated someone else, and then found out that someone else was just some hateful bitch. Life over!

Ha, that's a good point that we all missed! THESE BE THAR INTARWABS!!!1!1!!

Someone "dates" and "breaks up" with you over the Internet. This is as much BS as "cyber-bullying". Don't like what someone says to you online? Delete the email / close the IRC session / remove them from your contacts / etc. Seriously, get over it.

Turned out it me and he got in trouble for it the detention the parents grounding him all because he was a loser to begin with

That sentence is beyond comprehension. Can you rewrite it in English, please?

I learned this when in trouble threaten to take out your dick

I'm willing to bet quite a bit that this does not work as a rule of thumb :lol:

 

[TC]

Are you really going to keep comparing girls being vicious and mean to each other to vehicular manslaughter?

All of this happened over the internet. "Deceiving someone, tricking them into letting you into their private life, starting a relationship with them, getting emotionally involved with them, and then tearing their entire life to pieces while you laugh and spit on them"? Oh no, the girl e-dated someone else, and then found out that someone else was just some hateful bitch. Life over!

And even then, all that happened was someone said and did mean things to someone else. That they killed themselves over it really is, cruel as it sounds, irrelevant as far as the law is concerned. People do much worse things to each other over the internet every day, why is this any different just because some mentally unstable girl killed herself over it?

Again, calling what these people did to a 13 year old girl as nothing more then "being mean", is an extreme trivialization of what actually happened. They essentially drove her to suicide. To say nothing happened in "real life" is kinda funny, because what occurred over the "internets" resulted in the death of a minor. That seems pretty "real" to me.

But again, no accountability. That's why so many people online are brainless fucking retards. Just look at YouTube comments for proof. People do and say whatever they want, because they honestly believe their actions have no consequences. You can only be so reckless before it comes back to bite you. If this women got life in prison, she wouldn't get any sympathy from me. You reap what you sow.

 

[Dogbert]

Again, calling what these people did to a 13 year old girl as nothing more then "being mean", is an extreme trivialization of what actually happened. They essentially drove her to suicide. To say nothing happened in "real life" is kinda funny, because what occurred over the "internets" resulted in the death of a minor. That seems pretty "real" to me.

Then what exactly did these people do, besides trick some girl into e-dating her and then break up with her and say mean things to her?

I'm not trivializing it, I'm being rational about it. The sensationalism following this story is just as insane and irrational as the story itself. If this happened in real life, where a guy and a girl were dating, and the guy breaks up with the girl and the girl kills herself because the guy said some mean things about her... did the guy violate any laws?

 

[TC]

Then what exactly did these people do, besides trick some girl into e-dating her and then break up with her and say mean things to her?

I'm not trivializing it, I'm being rational about it. The sensationalism following this story is just as insane and irrational as the story itself. If this happened in real life, where a guy and a girl were dating, and the guy breaks up with the girl and the girl kills herself because the guy said some mean things about her... did the guy violate any laws?

Again, that depends. There was never any dating going on here. There wasn't even any relationship going on. It was all just a con. A huge lie to invade a girls privacy with the sole intention of gathering information to cause emotional harm to the girl. Being in a real relationship with someone and deciding it's not working out is a completely different thing. IMO.

It's all fine and dandy to stand back, a million miles away, and say she should have sucked it up and forgot about it. But next time you go to a party, find the biggest, drunkest, meanest dude there. Walk up to him and spit in his face and call him a racial slur or something. You can complain about rational responses when he's beating the living shit out of you 5 seconds later.