Ruling: Missouri Mother’s Convictions in Teen Suicide Case

Associated Press Video Highlights:  A federal judge on threw out the convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. The judge decision Monday made the ruling final.

See Video Below

A judge has finalized his decision to throw out convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in an Internet hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who committed suicide.

U.S. District Judge George Wu said in his written ruling that the case was never a legal test of crimes involving “cyberbullying.”

Prosecutors, who adopted that terminology early on, brought charges against Lori Drew under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute which does not involve cyberbullying, the judge said.  Read full story here

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Megan Taylor Meier (November 6, 1992 – October 17, 2006) was a teenager from Missouri who committed suicide by hanging  at the age of 13 years, 11 months.

Her suicide was attributed to cyber-bullying   through the website  MySpace. The account through which the bullying took place purportedly belonged to a 16-year-old male named “Josh Evans.” However, Lori Drew, the mother of a former friend of Meier, later admitted creating the MySpace account with her daughter and Ashley Grills, Lori Drew’s 18-year-old employee.Several people contributed to running the faked account, including Drew.

Witnesses testified that the women intended to use Meier’s e-mails with “Josh” to get information about her and later humiliate her, in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Drew’s daughter^.

Read more here

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Posted by:  BBParks

Source:  Associated Press/MSNBC

Tags: cyberbullying, Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute, Internet hoax, judges ruling, Lori Drew, Megan Taylor Meier, Missouri mother, myspace hoax, teen suicide

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