Lori Drew, Mom Behind MySpace Suicide, Indicted
Lori Drew, the meddling mom who posed as a 13-year-old boy and cyber-bullied Megan Meier on MySpace until the girl committed suicide, has been indicted on federal charges.
Previously, prosecutors in Missouri — where Drew and Meiers both lived — had declined to press charges calling Drew’s actions because the state’s harassment law did not extend to the internet.
The indictment was filed in Los Angeles, where MySpace is located. The charges against Lori Drew are based on laws against computer hacking and is the first of its kind.
“We are in uncharted waters here,” University of Southern California law professor and former federal prosecutor Rebecca Lonergan told Reuters. “This case is unprecedented and it’s also a very aggressive charging decision.”
Lonergan said Drew was charged with accessing a protected computer to obtain information, a statute typically used against defendants who hack into government computers.
But the crime alleged doesn’t involve taunting Megan Meiers until she killed herself. Rather, it was Drew’s actions afterwards which may lead to her conviction.
Following Megan’s death, Drew had told law enforcement officers that she hadn’t created the account which had been used to torment Megan. Investigation revealed that the page had been created by a girl employed by Drew, but once the investigation commenced Drew accessed and deleted it herself. She then instructed the girl to “keep her mouth shut.”
If convicted, Drew could face 20 years in federal prison.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I really think this case is going to be watched very closely. I also think that Drew needs a nice jail cell in Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
For a long time. For a number of reasons.
Margis last blog post..Busy. . .
Yep. She needs her face plastered all over things so that when she does get out people remember who she was and make her wish she was back inside.
lowest form of scum.
Mike Wilsons last blog post..wax job
At least the news coverage - whether the charges stick - will expose this woman for the beast she is. What a scum-sucking heartless wretch.
On its face, she does appear to be an evil woman who should be required to “pay” for crimes. Unfortunately, nobody quite contemplated that this type of crime would be committed and we are forced to find some amalgamation of existing statutes to mete out punishment. It will certainly be interesting to follow.
Jeffs last blog post..Idiot Pet Owners
It still boggles my mind that a grown woman would get that involved in her daughter’s life. Then to extend that involvement to the harassment of another teenager - I’m further boggled.
If she hadn’t know what she’d done was horribly wrong, then she would not have lied to investigators.
I don’t mean that first paragraph to suggest I don’t think parents should be involved in their teenagers lives, but the involvement should be tempered by their role as adult supervisors and advisors.
Donna B.s last blog post..Grandchildren Are Angels!
Donna, I think you identified the problem. That mom was trying to be her daughter’s friend, not her parent in a supervisory role. Maybe that’s why the mother resorted to acting like a 14 year old with no parent supervising HER!
When will parents realize that sometimes your kids won’t see you as the cool one, and won’t see you as their best friend, if you’re doing your job as a parent?
Drunkbunnys last blog post..Adoption 3: Less Rights, More Responsibilities
I just don’t know what to think about this. Obviously the woman needs some form of therapy irregardless of what happens with this case. I do think she has a lot to answer for and has to deal with the consequences of her actions. I wonder how long she thought about this or if there wasn’t any thought involved at all.
My daughter has issues with her friends all the time but I would never even consider doing anything like this. It really makes me wonder what her daughter is going to be like in the future. How much therapy is she going to need?
Chelles last blog post..Vista Bites or The Networks Just Don’t Care
Chelle,
Your comment brings up some interesting issues. Why is it obvious that the woman needs therapy? I realize that this question strays from the original topic and delves into a more macro issue…
Why is the reaction to people doing bad things therapy? What IS obvious to me is that folks do bad things, are rarely held accountable for their own actions, and even come up with new ways to do bad things. Why should she get therapy? Who would pay for that therapy. Would the care that she receives be at the expense of somebody else’s treatment? It would have to be. Why should a “criminal” get something before a non criminal?
Perhaps it is time we started having less of a shades of gray society? Feel free to enjoy all the rights, perqs, and benefits that society has to offer. But the moment you screw up, out of the gene pool for you! Extreme? Certainly. Practical? Maybe not. Food for thought…
Jeffs last blog post..Idiot Pet Owners
No wonder there are so many mean girls in middle school if there are moms like this out there orchestrating things.
And to think I thought it was terrible that the moms and dads of the mean girls we’ve had problems with wouldn’t believe written proof of what their mean girls had said and done. Who knows? Maybe the mean girls have mean moms who are playing along with them!
I don’t know that we can pull it off forever, but it seems to me that nothing good happens with IM or on MySpace or FaceBook, so those are forbidden in our house. If she wants to talk to a friend, she can call them up.
This mom needs to be taken away from her mean-girl-in-training ASAP. Jail would be a good place for her to go. Apparently we have to watch out for not only sexual predators ensnaring our kids online, but also emotionally manipulative predators as well. This is truly beyond belief.
Annes last blog post.."This Will Just be a Little Stick" (Accutane Report)
I was talking to my 14 yr old last night about this, and the first thing she asked me was why Lori Drew isn’t facing criminal charges for the emotional torture she inflicted on Megan Meier.
I pointed out to her that Al Capone, in spite of all the things he did, the people he killed, and the crimes he committed, was finally put away until he died for something as mundane as tax evasion. In short, it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.
Honestly, I doubt this case is going to be as big as everybody thinks it will be. Filing a case under computer hacking statutes isn’t nearly as “sexy” on the evening news as luridly recounting, over and over and over again for the people that might have missed it the first dozen times, how an adult preyed on a vulnerable teenager and drove her to kill herself.
No, of far more note here is the fact that this is the first knell of real, legal, tangible accountability for online social networking. That’s going to be Megan Meier’s legacy, I think, and none too soon.
wgs last blog post..Great definition
Having been “cyber-bullied” once myself in the past (in an incident I’m sure you probably recall, too), I think it’s about time that people start being held accountable for their intentional efforts to seek out others and make them miserable.
Me too and amen.
And you know, I’d settle for her being put away for jaywalking - but I’d prefer it if this could be a precedent case for Internet harassment.
Margis last blog post..Busy. . .
Agree, fully and completely. I can’t get over the idea of the family’s heartbreak over their child killing herself. I look forward to seeing how this case unfolds.
Oh, and we had a couple of “mean girls” in high school - and their moms were the sweetest, gentlest souls. I wanted them to be MY MOM. One of the mean girls had an older sister who was a downright bitch. The other girl had something like 4 older sisters and maybe she got her catty character from one of them.
Lattegirrls last blog post..Saturday odds & ends
I don’t remember that particular incident, Kate. Is it somewhere in the archives? It probably says something about my state of mind at the moment that I don’t recall, as usually I don’t forget things like that. LOL
I’m still of the opinion that some of Lori Drew’s conduct fits under the heading of (at least in Oregon it would) menacing and/or harassment. There are two big problems, however, that legislation is hard-pressed to address (in my admittedly layman’s opinion - Kate, you’re the attorney here, so correct me on any of this if I’m off base).
1) Accountability in a legal sense depends on being able to prove, without any doubt, that the person committing an act is the same person being accused of doing so. That’s hard to do when it’s a pseudonymous identity behind the keys, unless the authorities are able to actually examine the electronic paper trail left on the hard drive of the accused….which they often can’t do because of the reasonable belief standard required to obtain a search warrant for it. Add to that the fact that social networking can be done from any place with an Internet connection, and you have a recipe for all sorts of anonymous abuse.
2) The other wrinkle in this is that state or nationality lines are often, or usually, blurred when dealing with the Internet. The doctrine of states’ sovereignty prevents a lot of communication and cooperation between states in this case - as a parallel example, well-informed deadbeat dads from Oregon often go to one of three other states in the US to live because they know they won’t be pursued for child support there.
I think the only real solution to this, unfortunately, is federal legislation to level the playing field, so to speak, and it needs to be twofold.
First, no more of the “well it’s my account, but I wasn’t using it, it was so-and-so” defense. If it’s your Internet account or your social network ID, then the bullying is your responsibility whether you actually did it or not, much like being an accomplice after the fact to a capital crime. The actual perpetrator, of course, is also responsible unless that can’t be established….in which case, if somebody used your account to commit a crime, God help you.
The second thing is that committing a crime across state boundaries needs to have a penalty associated with the harsher statute in whichever state is involved. If, for example, I were to hack into a computer system and steal money in Kansas, then the prosecution has its choice, by federal law, which state’s statutes apply. This may be the case already for some crimes - my point is, if there’s a statute that covers it in one state, but not in the other, it plugs that little loophole nicely.
wgs last blog post..Catastrophe
If the feds have to dig so deep into the law to find a charge that sticks, it’s clear local laws need to be changed and brought up-to-date.
Laws for hacking into a pc, but no law for computer harassment which leads to a suicide?
Then again, can you imagine how many kids will be up on charges if they do eventually have a pc harassment law.
You are absolutely right Lynne. Laws do need to be updated on a regular basis so that they reflect the realities of society. Unfortunately, our legislators and government have demonstrated a poor ability to be timely on this front and would rather grandstand about things that have little impact on the average citizen. Why outlaw cyber-bullying when you can get your face on the news demanding a Congressional investigation into whether the Patriots cheated in football?
And let’s not forget, even if we got a new law right now for this very type of thing, it wouldn’t have bearing on this particular case. Ex post facto laws and all.
Jeffs last blog post..Fantastic Fries
…Then again, can you imagine how many kids will be up on charges if they do eventually have a pc harassment law.
Yes, I can, and as I said above, it’s none too soon.
wgs last blog post..Catastrophe
We’d like to think Drew is an atypical mother, but I have to wonder if parents condone bullying by silence, if not actively teaching it to their kids like Drew did, far more often than any one of us in society would like to acknowledge.
I worry that depressed and angry teens will see this and begin to see suicide as a way to get others to get revenge on those who hurt you. Teens already have an “I’ll show you!” mentality at times. Seeing this might cause emotionally unbalanced teens to say, “You hurt me, so I’ll kill myself and everyone will hate you until the day you die!”
Drunkbunnys last blog post..Adoption 3: Less Rights, More Responsibilities
I’m glad to see that they finally found something to charge her with. What kills me is that she has this attitude that she did nothing wrong.
Lisas last blog post..Need A Healthy Snack?
Kate, I thought of you as soon as I saw this story!
The mom in me wants to see this woman punished and laws in place to protect other children from having this happen to them. What a tragedy for this family!
At the same time, the libertarian in me wonders how a law could be written to address this without the unintended consequences so characteristic of our reactionary law-making.
Well, I think we’re in agreement that whenever one person knowingly and intentionally sets out to cause another emotional distress and then engages in a course of action designed to carry out that intent it’s crossing a line which should bring consequences with it.
The vagueness sets in when we start dilly-dallying about whether that person should be held responsible only for “foreseeable” consequences, or whether they should be held accountable for all consequences stemming from their course of action.
In the Drew case, it’s hard to argue that Megan’s suicide wasn’t the direct result of Drew’s actions. Remember, Lori Drew knew that Megan had been on anti-depressants and had seen a counselor previously: they’d taken the girl on camping trips with them and Drew had had to administer anti-depressants to Megan during that trip. So she KNEW of Megan’s emotionally fragile state.
I’d say that makes it pretty darned hard for her to argue she had no idea such a thing could happen in response to her conduct.
On the other hand, depression comes in many flavors. One could just as easily argue that Lori wasn’t negligent because she, not having education in mental health, didn’t understand how far gone Megan was.
Between you, me, and the wall, I don’t think that’s the case. I think she’s guilty as hell…but I think the prosecutors are smart not to chance setting a potentially permanent precedent with a case they’re not totally certain they can win. Going with a lesser charge they can make stick is the smart thing, particularly since it has its own rather stiff penalties.
wgs last blog post..Smackdown the way it should be done.
I agree going for charges they’ll most likely succeed on was a good move.
The facts of this case also demonstrate the shortcomings in federal and state cyberstalking laws, particularly those which require the making of a threat. The whole point of stalking is that it often doesn’t involve overt threats; it’s the pattern of harassment combined with the victim’s distress that constitute the crime.