Legal News

Judge rejects motions to dismiss MySpace suicide case

By Jason Siegel

A federal judge in Los Angeles rejected two motions to dismiss charges against a Missouri woman who is accused of defrauding MySpace.com by creating a false account in a hoax that allegedly led to a teenage girl's suicide, the Associated Press reported (here).

U.S. District Judge George Wu asked for more time to consider a third motion to dismiss the case and set the trial to begin on Oct. 7, the AP reported.

The woman, Lori Drew, allegedly posed as a 16-year boy on the website and sent cruel messages to one of her daughter's former friends.

The 13-year old neighbor, believing she'd been rejected by her online "boyfriend," committed suicide in 2006.

"What is not readily apparent from the Drew case is that it is not just the U.S. Department of Justice that can employ the CFAA to enforce a Web site's terms of use," Dorsey & Whitney partner Nick Akerman writes in a column in next week's issue of The National Law Journal.

Get an early look at the column, which examines "how Web site terms of use, in conjunction with the CFAA, provide broad legal protections to companies and their Web site users."
 

Previous postings:
"Amicus groups oppose feds' use of computer fraud act in MySpace case," Aug. 5, 2008
"Web suicide case with implications for fraud, cyberbullying and free speech on the Internet," Jan. 11, 2008

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).