Quite right Mindy! This witch should get the same treatment that the creeps who scream "Jump!! Jump!!" at someone standing on a tall building considering suicide should get! Unfortunately a judge is still considering reversing the conviction and now the sentencing date has been postponed.
www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/drew_sentenced/ QUOTE:
Judge Postpones Lori Drew Sentencing, Weighs Dismissal
By Kim Zetter May 18, 2009 | 6:39 pm | Categories: Cyberbullying, Lori Drew Trial, The Courts
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Monday postponed the sentencing of Lori Drew, the 50-year-old woman convicted of unauthorized computer access last year in the country’s first federal cyberbullying prosecution.
After an hour of discussion with prosecutors and Drew’s defense attorney, U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was still weighing a defense motion to overturn the jury verdict in the case and that he needs to review transcripts from the trial to weigh both the motion to overturn and the sentencing. Sentencing is now set for July 2nd.
Wu peppered U.S. attorney Mark Krause with questions about using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to prosecute Drew and the government’s assertions about who constitutes a victim in the case.
Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor charges for unauthorized computer access and faced a maximum sentence of three years and a $300,000 fine. Although prosecutors are seeking the maximum, probation authorities, in a pre-sentencing report sent to the court recently, recommended probation and a $5,000 fine.
Last November, after the prosecution rested, the defense sought a directed acquittal on grounds that prosecutors failed to prove their case. If granted, the motion would overturn the misdemeanors for lack of evidence and result in a judgment of acquittal. Defense attorneys file such motions on a regular basis, and judges generally overrule them fairly quickly. But Wu seemed to seriously consider granting the motion and has now delayed his ruling for more than five months.
On Monday, seemed no closer to ruling on the motion.
Prior to announcing that he needed more time, Wu heard from the parents of Megan Meier — Ron and Tina Meier. Both had submitted sealed statements to the court prior to the hearing. Ron Meier spoke with a quavering voice as he described what Megan was like and how her death affected his family.
“I am no longer married to Megan’s mom,” he said, halting to catch his emotions. “We are both financially ruined, and I have gone through a living hell.”
Wu, who did not look at Ron Meier during the first part of the father’s statement, turned his attention to him when his voice broke. But the judge showed no other indication that he was absorbed in what the father was saying.
Ron Meier disclosed that after news about Drew’s role in the cyberbullying went public and the Drew’s received death threats, he had been advised by authorities to maintain a daily log of his activities and make sure that he was never alone, because if something happened to Lori Drew or her family, he would be the first suspect.
Ron Meier closed by saying that Drew and other cyberbullies like her needed to be punished. Even if she hadn’t intended to harm his daughter, she needed to be held responsible for the consequences. Drunk drivers, he said, don’t set out to kill someone, “yet they’re still held accountable for their actions.”
Tina Meier, who has launched a foundation in Megan’s name and has traveled the country speaking out against cyberbullying, began her speech by recounting a number of details she had already mentioned at trial, prompting an impatient Wu to gently interrupt her to say that she had already testified to the facts.
Tina Meier closed by saying, “This is not just about Megan Meier. This is about all of the people who go through [cyberbullying] on a daily basis.”
She said that allowing Drew to go unpunished would send a message to other sufferers that they have no recourse.
Wu needed to punish Drew to send a message that “we are going to make a stand now for all the people who go through this.”
Drew’s defense attorneys have vowed to appeal the case if their motion for a directed acquittal is rejected. Defense attorneys H. Dean Steward and Orin Kerr wrote in a court filing Friday that they intend to appeal in part on grounds that violating a terms of service agreement is not a criminal offense, and on grounds that there is insufficient evidence to show that Drew knew the terms of service existed, read them and intentionally violated them.
In their filing, they wrote that the issue of whether intentional terms-of-service violations should be regarded as a crime “presents a novel and very difficult question of law.”
“In light of the aggressive nature of the government’s case, and the uncertainty of the law, Ms. Drew’s appeal would raise a substantial question of law based on this question alone,” they wrote.
Drew was initially charged with one count of felony conspiracy and three counts of felony unauthorized computer access, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, for allegedly violating MySpace’s terms of service by participating in the creation of a fake profile for a non-existent 16-year-old boy named “Josh Evans.”
The indictment charged that in September 2006 Drew conspired to create the Josh Evans account with her then 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and a then-18-year-old employee and family friend named Ashley Grills, for the purpose of inflicting psychological harm on a 13-year-old neighbor named Megan Meier.
Prosecutors alleged that Drew and the two others used the profile to lure Megan into an online relationship with “Josh” to find out what Megan was saying about Drew’s daughter online. Midway through the ruse, prosecutors said Drew changed the plan and wanted to print out the correspondence between Megan and the fake boy in order to confront her with the pages in public and humiliate her.
That confrontation never occurred. But a month after “Josh” initiated the online relationship with Megan, he turned on her and told her he wanted to sever their relationship, writing that the world would be a better place without her in it. Shortly thereafter, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom.
Neighbors in O’Fallon, Missouri, the small town where the Drews and Meiers lived four houses away from each other, turned on Drew when her supposed complicity in the hoax emerged. Publicity over the suicide prompted county prosecutors to review the case to determine if charges could be filed against Drew, but they were stymied by the fact that there was no federal or state criminal law addressing the cyberbullying that Drew was alleged to have committed.
That’s when prosecutors in Los Angeles sought to indict Drew, charging her with unauthorized access to MySpace’s computers, using the federal anti-hacking statute known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The case against Drew hinged on the government’s novel argument that violating MySpace’s terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.
MySpace’s user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors claimed.
But testimony in the case offered by prosecution witness Ashley Grills under a grant of immunity showed that nobody involved in the hoax actually read the terms of service. Grills also said that the hoax was her idea, not Drew’s, and that it was Grills who created the Josh Evans profile, and later sent the cruel message that tipped the emotionally vulnerable 13-year-old girl into her final, tragic act.
Some legal experts and civil libertarians “decried the prosecution as an abuse of computer-crime laws and feared that it would set a precedent for turning contractual violations into criminal offenses.
Drew was cleared of the felony computer-hacking charges by a jury, but convicted of three misdemeanors for unauthorized computer access. The jury deadlocked on the felony charge of conspiracy.
Underscoring the importance of the high-profile case to the government, Thomas O’Brien, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, personally oversaw the prosecution and handled some of the witness testimony himself. The government has not indicated whether it will seek a new trial on the deadlocked conspiracy charge.
Much of the discucssion on Monday focused on the pending defense motion to reverse the jury verdict, and whether or not the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was properly used in the case.
Judge Wu asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause whether Drew would have been guilty of a crime if she had not used a computer to harass Megan Meier, but had simply sent her notes with the intention of harassing her. Krause replied that “most likely it would be a state violation of stalking or harassing.”
Wu kept pressing the issue and asked prosecutors if Drew was guilty because she gained unauthorized access to MySpace’s computers, or because she gained information from Megan Meier through the Josh Evans ruse. Krause indicated that she was guilty on both counts. But Wu replied that Drew and her alleged co-conspirators did not gain any information from Megan they didn’t already have.
“What did they obtain that harmed Megan Meier?” he asked.
Wu then turned to the issue of the terms-of-service, and whether violating them is a criminal act.
“How many times do people get on internet match sites and lie about their height and their age . . .” he asked. Are they all guilty of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
Krause said no, because they don’t know they’re violating the terms.
And if they know, are they in violation Wu asked?
Krause switched tactics and indicated that Drew did not need to have read the terms of service to know she was breaking the law. He said two witnesses had testified to the fact that Drew knew what she was doing was wrong. One of Drew’s alleged co-conspirators, Ashley Grills, had testified that after the Josh Evans profile had been created, she mentioned to Drew that what they were doing was wrong and that “we would get in trouble because it’s illegal to make up fake MySpace [accounts].” Drew, she said, told her not to worry. “It was fine, and people do it all the time,” she recalled Drew saying.
A second witness named Susan Prouty, who was a business associated of Drew’s, had testified that Drew told her that she had created the Josh Evans account in order to harass Megan. Prouty responded to Drew that what they were doing was wrong. Yet Drew did not close the account and end the ruse.
Wu said he needed to review both Grills’ and Prouty’s testimony but asked again how someone could know they were breaking MySpace’s terms if they didn’t read them.
Krause replied that MySpace makes its policies known to users in a number of ways, through education and comments on its site, implying that anyone who uses the site should know what is appropriate behavior on it.
(Updated: 8:00 pm)
Image at top right: Lori Drew leaves federal court during a lunch break Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008,
in Los Angeles. Nick Ut/AP