Lori Drew, the woman convicted of using a hoax MySpace profile to harass a teenage girl to the point of suicide, was acquitted by a Los Angeles judge on Thursday, Wired reported.
Judge George Wu overturned Drew's guilty verdict, which was issued in November, saying that if Drew had been convicted of a felony in the case, she would already have been sentenced. But because she was convicted of three misdemeanors--a significantly lighter offense than prosecutors originally sought--the constitutionality of the guilty verdict was less clear.
Drew, a Missouri resident, had been convicted of three misdemeanor counts of "accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress," each of which could have resulted in a year of jail and a $100,000 fine. But she hadn't been convicted of conspiracy, a felony that could've led to up to 20 years in prison.
The tragic situation unfolded in 2006, when Drew, her teenage daughter, and an 18-year-old employee of the family created a fake MySpace profile for a fictitious teenage boy that they used to harass one of Drew's daughter's classmates, 13-year-old Megan Meier. Meier hanged herself.
This was a situation in which traditional law did not align smoothly with the realities of the digital world: the prosecutors' argument was rooted in a terms of service violation, since MySpace officially outlaws impersonation and fictitious accounts.
Last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation urged the courts to dismiss the case because of the precedent it could set. "Criminal charges for a 'terms of service' violation is a dramatic misapplication of the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), with far-ranging consequences for American computer users," the EFF said at the time, and argued that it could result in criminal charges for something as innocuous as a minor using the Google search engine.
Drew's lawyers had argued that the law being used against the defendant was vague and flawed, which the judge upheld Thursday when he threw out the guilty verdict. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is typically used against malicious hackers.
According to Wired, the judge argued for nearly 45 minutes with U.S. Attorney Mark Krause over the specifics of the CFAA.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that social network MySpace was issued a subpoena in the investigation of a 13-year-old girl's 2006 suicide that involved harassment through a fabricated profile on the News Corp.-owned site. The article also said that "witnesses in the case" had additionally received subpoaenas.
Representatives from MySpace were not immediately available for comment or confirmation. The social network is no stranger to court orders, having been subpoenaed by multiple state attorneys general last year over sex offender concerns.
But the tragic case of Megan Meier's suicide is a very different situation; my colleague Ina Fried has been following the issue closely on her Beyond Binary blog. Meier, who had a history of depression, hanged herself after a falling out with someone named "Josh" whom she thought was a 16-year-old boy on MySpace. As it turns out, "Josh" didn't exist; the persona was created by a number of adults, including a woman named Lori Drew, the mother of one of Meier's former friends, specifically to harass the girl.
But no charges have been filed yet, despite the efforts of local and state authorities in Meier's home state of Missouri. The Times article reported that it is still not clear as to who actually created the fictional account--this is something that cooperation from MySpace could help reveal. Sources who spoke to the Times anonymously said that the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, where MySpace is headquartered, is looking at charging Lori Drew with defrauding MySpace by creating the fake profile.
In November, Meier's hometown of Dardenne Prairie, Mo. passed a law banning online harassment. Offenders can face up to 90 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both.
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