Legal News

Lawyer: Lori Drew Neither ?Encouraged nor Participated in? MySpace Hoax

By Dan Slater

U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien, Oct. 16, 2008, in Los Angeles. (AP/Ric Francis)

There’s been much made over the facts and the law of the MySpace suicide case. Some believe the story is clear, and that all that’s left to decide is whether Lori Drew’s conduct qualifies her for prosecution under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act. But the factual question, we think, is equally compelling: To what extent did Drew, the woman accused of making unauthorized use of MySpace to inflict emotional harm on 13-year-old Megan Meier, cause Meier’s death?

As Thomas O’Brien, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in yesterday’s opening statements, Drew “fully intended to hurt and prey on Megan Meier’s psyche.” (Here’s a report from Wired.) O’Brien claimed that Drew actively conspired with two others in creating and maintaining a MySpace profile for a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named “Josh Evans” in September 2006. The Evans account was used by multiple people to flirt with, befriend and ultimately reject 13-year-old Megan Meier, who’d had a falling-out with Drew’s daughter.

One of the users of the account, Ashley Grills, a then-18-year-old woman employed by Drew and her husband, has admitted to sending a final, cruel message to Meier while posing as Evans: “The world would be a better place without you. Have a s***** rest of your life.” Meier then hanged herself in her bedroom. Grills has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her cooperation with the government. She’s scheduled to testify against Drew.

Though the prosecution concedes that Drew did not send that final message, O’Brien argued that the whole purpose of the hoax from the start was to inflict emotional distress on a vulnerable girl. O’Brien, according to the Wired report, said he’d offer testimony that Drew conspired with her daughter, Sarah, and with Grills to humiliate Meier, and was heard laughing about the hoax they were perpetrating on the girl. (After Meier’s death, Drew’s hairdresser allegedly asked Drew why she was going to the wake, given her role in the cyber bullying. Drew’s response, O’Brien reportedly said, was, “It’s not like I pulled the trigger.”)

But defense attorney H. Dean Steward, in his opening remarks, claimed that Drew knew about the plan to create the hoax MySpace profile and manipulate Meier, but neither encouraged nor participated in it. Steward told the jury that forensics evidence will prove the account was not created from Drew’s computer, and that no messages were sent by Drew.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on November 20, 2008 (boomark / email).