Internet troll claims authorship of Megan Meier blog

IT freelancer has no connection to St. Charles County
2008-08-10T00:00:00Z 2011-10-28T10:32:19Z Internet troll claims authorship of Megan Meier blogBy Steve Pokin stltoday.com
August 10, 2008 12:00 am  • 

The person behind the inflammatory blog "Megan Had it Coming" is a 32-year-old information technology freelancer who lives near Seattle, according to a story about Internet trolls that ran Aug. 3 in The New York Times.

Jason Fortuny had no connection with events in Missouri surrounding the 2006 death of Megan Meier. As some had suspected, he is an Internet troll.

Trolls use the Internet to emotionally upset someone they don't know. They typically pick people or issues that, in their view, need to be ridiculed. They don't use their real names and attempt to inflame online discussions by posting outrageous and hurtful comments just to see who will take the bait.

Fortuny told the newspaper he created the blog to question the public's hunger for remorse and to challenge the enforceability of cyberspace harassment laws like the one passed in Dardenne Prairie, where 13-year-old Meier had lived. She killed herself in October 2006.

According to the newspaper, Fortuny was pleased with the results of the blog, which received more than 3,600 comments, many expressing outrage and anger.

Fortuny could not be reached for comment for this story. He is being sued in federal court in Chicago for an unrelated Internet incident. Fortuny is representing himself and court documents include his e-mail address.

Last month he sent an eight-page letter to the judge in the Chicago case.

"I make no excuses about who I am," Fortuny wrote. "I am frequently rude, unsympathetic, unempathetic, and politically incorrect, to put it mildly. But there's no law against that."

The first post of "Megan Had it Coming" was Nov. 18, 2007, a week after the story of Megan's suicide — and the MySpace hoax surrounding it — first appeared in the Suburban Journals of St. Charles County.

The initial post was made by a teenage girl who claimed to know Megan from school and admitted that she was using the false name of Kristen.

Kristen called Megan a "drama queen" and wrote, "So yeah, it's to (sic) bad Megan killed herself but it's not surprising. I mean if she didn't have enough to eat at dinner that could have set her off and made her kill herself."

Kristen later posted that she was actually Lori Drew.

Drew, 49, lives on the same block where Megan lived. Drew was involved in creating a phony MySpace account for a fictitious boy named Josh Evans for the purpose of discovering if Megan was saying mean things about Drew's daughter, then 13. The two girls had been friends but had a falling out.

Megan and Josh became friends over six weeks. But Josh suddenly turned mean and Megan, who had suffered from depression, hanged herself.

Drew now faces criminal charges in Los Angeles in connection with establishing the Josh Evans account.

Back in November, Drew, through her attorney, denied any connection to "Megan Had it Coming."

She could not be reached for comment for this story.

In The New York Times story, Fortuny told the newspaper he carefully crafted the various characters in "Megan Had it Coming." For instance, he told the newspaper, he wanted his fake "Lori Drew" to come across as a fierce defender of her own daughter.

Fortuny expressed no remorse in the news story. Instead, he asked, "Why don't people fact-check who this stuff is coming from? Why do they assume it's true?"

When the blog appeared, the St. Charles County Sheriff's Department investigated to see if the creator was a county resident and, in particular, if it was Lori Drew. The investigation ended once it was determined the blog was created out of state, Lt. Craig McGuire said.

Even if a crime were committed, McGuire said, there are inherent difficulties in using public admissions to bring to justice someone with a history of pulling hoaxes and not telling the truth.

In fact, Randy Bierce, creator of the blog "Death by 1000 Papercuts," said Friday that when he and a co-worker tried to discover who created "Megan Had it Coming," they were led to an Internet protocol address in Oregon. Bierce's blog covered the Megan Meier story extensively.

Jack Banas, St. Charles County prosecuting attorney, said Friday that Fortuny's admissions in The New York Times do not change matters. The fact remains that no apparent crime has been committed, he said.

An important factor is that readers of the blog had to seek it out, he said. The comments were not sent to an individual as a form of harassment, he said.

Banas called whoever created the blog a "twisted individual."

If it's Fortuny, Banas said, the Washington man might regret making his involvement so public.

"You just wonder what other twisted person will twist him up," he said.

Fortuny gained notoriety in 2006 for what he calls a "social experiment."

He posted an ad on Craigslist in Seattle, posing as a woman seeking intimate relations with men. He received 177 responses. Many of the men sent nude photos of themselves.

Fortuny then posted the responses — including names, e-mail addresses and photos — on his Web site and then on a Web site called Encyclopedia Dramatica. One of the men, identified as John Doe in court proceedings, is suing Fortuny in Chicago.

Ron and Tina Meier, Megan's parents, said Thursday that they did not read "Megan Had it Coming," although friends and relatives told them about it. The couple's divorce became final in May.

If Fortuny is, indeed, the author, Ron Meier has one question for him: Why?

"I guess people are just really messed up," he said.

Tina Meier said she has no desire to meet or talk to Fortuny. But if she did, she would show him a picture of Megan as a baby. And another of her first day of school.

"She was my little girl," she said.

She said she prays Fortuny never has to go through what she has faced, adding that he must have family members he loves.

But then she paused. "Maybe he has no feelings," Tina Meier said. "Maybe there is something that happened to him that he has no feelings."

In The New York Times story, Fortuny told the paper that he was 5 when molested by four family members.

Fortuny's mother told the paper that her son was molested by a close family member and that she remembers her most recent communication with her son. He told her to kill herself.

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