I just received an email from a friend who also has a law degree, though not practicing. He stated that this is the creating of new law. Without legislative action at the State or Federal level, the indictment itself will be challenged and, in his opinion, thrown out before any pre-trial hearings or motions.

I agree this could be a frightening precident. Big Brother would be watching you, as they already are with Cyclops, and what would be the results? A CIA or FBI Intern deciding you are committing a criminal offense?

Since it was a targeted attack rather than random trolling, yes should be indicted and prosecuted. The perp knew the intended victim and targeted her for abuse which makes this a criminal act. However, the line should be drawn at causing the victim’s death since Megan and her parents would have been responsible for her emotional state.

The precedent would be similar to a bitter, hostile, jewish supremacist former employer, a Creve Coeur IT Leasing firm, making baseless claims against you and disparing remarks to prospective employers in order to prevent you from finding new employement and also coworker at that same Creve Coeur IT leasing firm that stole your job and then came by your house and damaged one of your small business service vans (because they felt zip code superiority over you) and then called the police on you to have you harassed by the Creve Coeur police vs. a random hoodlum committing vandalism on your van.

Superdave I totally agree with you!!! Parents accept responsibility for your actions. Kids are bullied, teased on a daily basis. The girl was obviously unbalanced to hang herself. That’s not normal behavior for an average teenager. You let your child have that kind of access to the internet you have to risk all the dangers it may bring. Teach your children well.

I do not see much difference in what Ms Drew (49 )did to Megan (13)than an adult male pretending to be a boy talking on the internet to a girl. Here in Ohio the men get arrested all the time. Really does not matter what Megan’s parents did not did not do, Ms Drew and her family played head games with an emotionally disturbed CHILD, and she must have know it because she would not have made sure every thing was erased from My Space not told the other child not to tell anyone. Lori knew what she had done and she was afraid of getting caught.

Renee–

This is an indictment, not a conviction. Drew AND her co-conspirators are charged. There is no evidence at present that Lori Drew personally did *anything* except own the computer from which the Josh emails came. As I understand the story, all along, she’s been taking the heat for her employee, and possibly, her daughter. It may very well have been minor on minor harassment.

If the media aren’t willing to let this thing rest, let it go to trial, so that everyone can find out what happened with people testifying under oath.

On another point: this country may not have existed without the ‘fictitious name’ media insurrection of the Founding Fathers. Franklin, Paine, Revere, et al were in danger of losing their livelihoods had their letters of protest against the king been published under their real names.
Names aren’t important on the Net…if a person has a valid point civilly expresed it will be respected. If they type like an idiot, that comes across too. There are perils to free expression– but the price is worth it, in my opinion.

Yes- charge her with creating a fake person online.

But NO- on blaming her for Megans suicide.
There is ZERO proof that Megan killed herself over this. ZERO.

Her parents were getting a divorce and she had just had a huge fight with her mother. I believe that these two thing had much more to do with Megan wanting to die then some fake boy online.

There are many elements all together that caused this not just one stupid woman and her fake myspace boy. The parents need to take some the blame too.

I think it is crazy that she is going to be sent to jail, yet all the sexual predators are still on Myspace and none of them have been prosecuted by Myspace!
I think what Mrs.Drew did was dispicable and morally wrong, but honestly I do not believe that she should go to jail because of it. Megan already had mental “issues”, if the boy had been a real boy and he broke up with her would there have been the same outcome? Probably. Lots of people of all ages commit suicide every year.If they are depressed for what ever reason and that is what they see as their only option, then that is what is going to happen.

I’m hurt and upset by all these posts. Now I am going to go kill myself. Which one of you should I blame for my suicide? How do we know that she killed herself over myspace? Maybe her mom cut off the little fatso’s brownie supply!

Lori Drew already is reaping the whirlwind. The whole world knows who she is, and what she did, and legal indictments won’t change that. She and her family will be ostracized and unwelcome anywhere they go. She will spend the rest of her life watching her back, never feeling comfortable anywhere. Even if they were to change their names and move, their past would catch up eventually. So, indictment or not, she is getting hers already.

The fact in this case is there was a law broken. When you sign up for a MySpace account under false pretense that is illegal and a crime that is punishable. It states that under the terms and conditions. There should be prosecution for this act. Is this a stretch from the case that a child lost their life and the fact is yes, regardless there was a law broken and for that she has been charged. This is no way excuses the actions of Drew’s daughter or Ashley Grills who as 18 was an adult and should be charged as well.
Regarding Megan’s parents, I don’t take the blame off of her parents nor would I put more blame on them. Those who commented on her obviously do not have teenage children. It is so easy to say the parents were at fault. They didn’t do enough. The fact is there are a million plus child 13 years old children on MySpace. She was a 13 year old girl. At this age you are extremely vulnerable to everything even if you have no mental issues. Everything is to the extreme and you are very sensitive to everything. That is just how young girls are. You can’t change that. You can teach them how to have a greater amount of self esteem you could have restricted her access to MySpace but the fact that she was so sensitive wasn’t going to change. As a parent all you can do is encourage your child and help them get through the tough teenage years. You can try block out every potential negative thing that could harm them but negative people are in the world. There is no way to potentially block out every harmful thing out there. It would be impossible. The best we can do as parents is help teach them and guild them. To put all the blame on the parents is completely ludicrous. While the parents are ultimately responsible for a child there is no way to predict that an adult neighbor would create an account to hurt your child. After the fact when you can see all the details it might be easy to see that but while this is playing out you see your child be friendly with someone new. It is a tragic case of a prank gone too far. I don’t want to see prosecution for insulting someone. This is America and we should be able to say what we want, hence the freedom of speech. If they wanted to be mean to this girl they had every American right to do so. Where this case crossed the line is not the these individuals were being rude, it is the fact they went out of their way to create a fictitious site, create a fictitious person and picture and pretend to be someone else to create harm on another person. Which under this site is illegal. That is what she is prosecuted for and that is what she should be found guilty of. While there potentially are many guilty parties similarity stating the parents failed is incorrect and not what these charges and about.