Cyberbullying Trial Witness Tells Of Torturing Young Girl On MySpace

LOS ANGELES — The daughter of a woman accused of orchestrating a cruel Internet hoax against a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide took the witness stand Friday to defend her mother.

Sarah Drew, 16, said her mother, Lori Drew, initially thought it was a good idea to create a fictitious boy on a MySpace account to find out if Megan Meier was spreading rumors about Sarah.

But Sarah said her mother told a business assistant to shut down the MySpace account two weeks after it was created _ well before the final message was sent saying the world would be better off if Megan was dead.

Megan, who had been treated for attention deficit disorder and depression, hanged herself in October 2006 after receiving the message.

Lori Drew has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and accessing computers without authorization. If convicted of all counts, Drew faces up to 20 years in prison.

Sarah's testimony capped a week of emotional and sometimes touchy proceedings in what is believed to be the nation's first cyber-bullying trial.

Sarah broke down under cross-examination by U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien as she described how Megan had confided in her about her suicidal thoughts, but Sarah didn't tell anyone.

The trial also took another twist when U.S. District Judge George Wu said he will rule Monday on a defense motion calling for the dismissal of charges against the 49-year-old Drew.

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Prosecutors say Drew, her business assistant Ashley Grills and Sarah created the MySpace alias of a teen boy called "Josh Evans" in September 2006 to befriend Megan.

Sarah told jurors her mother thought inventing "Josh" was a good idea but changed her mind two weeks later and told Grills to shut it down. Sarah also said she tried to stop Grills from sending the final message.

"I was like, Ashley, no, don't send it," Sarah said. "She said she sent it and laughed about it."

Sarah testified she never saw her mother use the MySpace account. Her statement contradicted testimony by Grills that she had seen Drew type at least one message and court documents alleging Drew told authorities she typed, read and monitored the chat between "Josh" and Megan.

Sarah said it was her father, not her mother, who told her and Grills to delete the MySpace account after they learned Megan had hanged herself. Grills testified Thursday it was both Sarah's parents who made the request.

On cross-examination by the prosecution, Sarah said she often forgave Megan, who she considered her best friend, for saying mean things about her. She also denied having a role in her friend's death.

Sarah said Megan confided in her on two occasions that she wanted to kill herself.

"She was like, I don't know if I could live anymore," she said of one instance. "I told her not to do it."

Sarah cried on the witness stand and nodded when O'Brien questioned her about why she didn't tell any adults about the suicide conversations.

Defense attorney Dean Steward stood up and lashed out at the region's top federal prosecutor for badgering the teenage girl.

"Come on, 'yes or no,' not a head nod. Be a professional!" Steward bellowed. Drew shot icy stares at O'Brien but showed no other reaction.

Sarah was visibly shaken as she left the courtroom and wept as she passed Megan's parents Ron and Tina Meier. Outside court, Drew tried to calm her daughter.

Steward said his client would not testify at the trial.

Judge Wu said he intends to review testimony and issue a ruling on the dismissal motion by the defense claiming Drew cannot be held responsible for violating the service rules of the MySpace social networking site because she never read them.

While making the dismissal motion, Steward argued that neither Drew nor Sarah or Grills had read the rules.

"The best view of the government's evidence is ambiguous at best," Steward said.

That prompted Wu to question Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause about the charges in the ongoing trial.

"How would they know if they didn't read the terms of service?" Wu asked.

Krause said Grills had testified that she knew they could get in trouble for the hoax, and that a computer forensics analysis showed a MySpace account had been deleted from Drew's computer after the suicide of Megan.

Steward called his own expert who testified Friday she could not find any evidence that the account had been deleted from Drew's computer.

Jae Sung, a vice president of customer care at MySpace, testified that MySpace requires users to check a box agreeing to the rules prohibiting such things as online harassment.

Sung's testimony addressed a central aspect of the prosecution case alleging that Drew violated MySpace service terms by harassing Megan and setting up a fake account. Sung said "impostor profiles" such as the "Josh" account in this case are not allowed under MySpace guidelines.

"What happens when they are found?" Krause asked.

"We generally delete those profiles," Sung said.

Sung said MySpace now has 400 million profiles for users, which makes it difficult to enforce the service rules.

Comments

[clamperken]

If the legal system lets this unfit mother off the hook for her totally irresponsible and incorrigible action, it will set a seriously bad example to all users of the internet. The fact that she, her daughter and her accomplices are taking no responsibility for this girl's tragic suicide is reason enough to throw the whole lot of them in jail.

[The Lorax]

I can't believe this woman. If your kid is being talked about you be the adult and either tell your kid this will pass or you talk (talk, not argue) with the other child's parents about it. You do NOT set a horrible example by coming up with a sneaky plan to decieve another child to find out if she's talking bad about someone. This is outrageous. These are the kids of stories I show to my daughter to let her know how crazy and twisted people can be. She deserves prison time. All three of them do in my opinion.

[rughead23]

Fed up with the internet, webpages and connectivty....yet continue posting?

[Passenger57]

To be nearly 50 years old and doing this kind of stuff - knowing the person on the other end is a suicidal teenager - is prettty sick stuff. Guilty. A REAL adult would have either talked to her parents or stayed out of it altogether.
Good work, Mom...you destroyed two families - your victim's and your own. Go somewhere nice and quiet so you can think about what you did - ah, I know of such a place...

[DontselltheUS]

Because of :Lori Drew's actions, a 13 year old girl is dead. Her cruelty aimed at this troubled child seems criminal to me. Charges of Terms of Service violation seems minuscule compared to the outcome of her actions.

At the very least, it serves as a wakeup call to ALL parents. First, to protect their kids by overseeing their computer use and second, to be mature and responsible when counseling their kids, When Lori Drew became involved in this deadly hoax, she showed her own daughter how to deal with friendship problems. She condoned this behavior which encouraged her daughter and her friends to think this behavior was acceptable.

This woman seems devoid of conscience.

[keepemhonest]

One Crime Lori Drew is being charged on is Fraud Hacker.

Fraud Hacker: Generally defined in law as an intentional misrepresentation of facts made by one person to another person, knowing that such misrepresentation is false but will induce the other person "to act" resulting in injury or damage to him or her.

* 49 year old Lori Drew intentionally misrepresented her true identity, age, gender and posed as a 16 year old boy to a 13 year old girl.

* 49 year old Lori Drew intentionally INDUCED a 13 year old child to be seduced by the false, madeup 16 year old boy.

* 49 year old Lori Drew intentionally INDUCED a 13 year old child, who she knew in advance was on antidepressant medication, to injure and/or damage the 13 year old girl's self esteem.

THUS, Lori Drew should be tried for harrassment AND FRAUD HACKING ... and any thing else that fits this crime.

[keepemhonest]

last year - NewYorkTimes (11/2007 )
"Ms. Drew had taken Megan on family vacations, she knew the girl had been prescribed antidepression medication, Ms. Meier [Megan"s mother] said. She also knew that Megan had a MySpace page."

"After a month of innocent flirtation between Megan and Josh, Ms. Meier said, Megan suddenly received a message from him saying, "I don"t like the way you treat your friends, and I don"t know if I want to be friends with you."

"They argued online. The next day other youngsters who had linked to Josh"s MySpace profile joined the increasingly bitter exchange and began sending profanity-laden messages to Megan, who retreated to her bedroom."

"Shortly before Megan"s death, the Meiers had agreed to store a foosball table the Drews had bought as a Christmas surprise for their children. When the Meiers learned about the MySpace hoax, they attacked the table with a sledgehammer and an ax, Ms. Meier said, and threw the pieces onto the Drews" driveway."

"The police learned about the hoax when Ms. Drew filed a complaint about the damage to the foosball table. In the report, she stated that she felt the hoax "contributed to Megan"s suicide, but she did not feel "as guilty" because at the funeral she found out Megan had tried to commit suicide before."

*** "as guilty" .... there is no sort of guilty ... guilty IS guilty
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28hoax.html?_r=1

[Nikola Tesla]

Queen Bee. Hope she swings.

[kjstjohn]

I would rather see this woman tried for negligent homicide in state court. Maybe there were some negative precedents that kept the state DA from prosecuting for homicide.

[markvz]

This story has been simmering in the news for over a year now. Whether or not Drew is convicted of anything, the lives of her entire family have been pretty much destroyed. My sympathies to the daughter - she was thirteen at the time. Moreover, I understand that the Myers have forgiven Ashley Grills for her roll in it. Why? Because she felt terrible about it, fessed up to it, and expressed remorse. The Drews, in their colossal arrogance, have done none of that. To this day they continue to dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole. If they want to escape this, they should consider relocating. I would suggest Pluto.

[doctordoubt]

Or Alaska.

[roshni]

Ashley was 17 when her boss asked her to do this. The adult Drew is the villain here for not knowing how to be an adult.
When a mother instigates and aggravates a quarrel between two children, it's never a good thing.

[lisakaz2]

This woman needs her head examined and probably a nice jail term. Worrying about your own child is one thing but luring and bullying a neighbor crosses a big line. Someone should have known better. Don't know if it's criminal but it sure is criminally stoopid, among other things.

[Courtney250]

I have a 12 year old son who will very soon be 13. What in the world was a child of that age doing on MySpace in the first place? I am not blaming her parents but I closely monitor all of my son's internet use and with whom he is speaking. I have blocked more than one unknown person emailing or IM-ing him. There should have been more supervision of this child's internet interactions, particularly since she was depressed and vulnerable.

That being said, this awful Lori Drew is a monster. As a parent, what possible excuse could she have told herself to make this okay? Clearly she is a very bad, perhaps evil person. While the court system may not be able to adequately punish her for her actions, karma will catch up with her. She can't hide from that.

[TJane]

What a pathetic excuse for a human being and mother. She must be the biggest loser to spend her time and energy doing this kind of thing. I hope she goes to jail so her children will not have to grow up with such a horrible role model. She deserves to be ostracized for the rest of her life. Then she will know how that poor girl felt.

[roshni]

Her children should be taken away from her at least. She is an unfit parent.

[indyleftist]

This is a sickening miscarriage of justice
Lynch mob mentality
Instead of being angry at those who make fun of the outcasts, I think people should try to not create the outcasts themselves. This girl was pushed over the edge by society as a whole just as much as this one person, otherwise this person could not have gained so much power of this girl.

The people in her home town that are demanding justice be done wouldn't have given the dead girl the time of day when she was alive. Its just as much their fault

[LeftistGuerrilla]

Miscarriage of justice? She terrorised that young girl and possible intended to inflict emotional harm.

[indyleftist]

Its not illegal to be mean to someone
Its not illegal to lie to someone
No crime happened here. Jail is not for people you don't like or do things you think is immoral or unsavory. It is for people who break the law

[DrEight]

I must agree. People seem to be letting personal emotion cloud their better judgement

[weatherwaxx]

Um... no. Odds are most of the people in that town didn't even know the kid was depressed. I have a friend who's suffered from depression for years, and I know that if I don't hear from her, I'd better phone and see how she's doing.

This woman Drew seems to have the emotional maturity of a teenager -- and/or some other personal sexual issues. What was she doing cyber-courting a kid her own daughter's age? That's a pretty sick game.

I hope she gets the maximum sentence on all counts. Egging someone into suicide is only a whisper away from outright murder.

[roshni]

She set out to victimize a child and deliberately stalked her and manipulated her. How is this the whole town's fault when it was about her personal vendetta against a 13 year old?

[ElBruce]

Although this woman's actions are reprehensible, I'm concerned about the ramifications of the legal questions involved here.

How many people here are posting under names matching your driver's license? Do you want to run the risk of going to prison based on what you say to someone online? That's the can of worms involved here.

The charges shouldn't be computer-related. The trial should be adjudicated exactly the same as if she were using a phone or snail mail to do the same thing. From what I can tell, they're looking at giving her up to 20 years solely for violating MySpace's terms of service. That's messed up. ToS's shouldn't have that much power.

[ellawensmom]

I think there's a big difference between posting opinions, and verbally bullying a young girl who you already know suffers from depression and who has suicidal tendencies. At no time after the girl killed herself did these people come forward. They even asked the girl's family to store some stuff in their garage!!! I hope this lady goes to jail, but I don't think the other woman should get immunity for testifying against her. For adults to involve themselves in middle school drama is ABSURD!!!

[Thad]

"I think there's a big difference between posting opinions, and verbally bullying a young girl who you already know suffers from depression and who has suicidal tendencies."

Of course there is.

There's also a big difference between bullying a young girl who you already know suffers from depression and who has suicidal tendencies and committing fraud.

[keepemhonest]

Lori Drew did not just post 'comments' with an alias.


* 49 year old Lori Drew intentionally and willfully stalked and preyed on a 13 year old child.

* Lori Drew intentionally and willfully HID her true identity, age, and gender to the child.

* Lori Drew intentionally and willfully seduced the little girl posing as a child ... (no different than what a ped op hile does to lure kids online)

* Lori Drew intentionally and willfully send "mean emails" to the a 13 year old child whom Lori had advanced knowledge, was on antidepression medication.

Lori Drew's actions & lies about her identity are NOT protected by the First Amendment nor any other alias protection in the Constitution.

[Thad]

Which contradicts the post you're replying to in WHAT way, exactly?

The poster you're replying to said:

"The charges shouldn't be computer-related. The trial should be adjudicated exactly the same as if she were using a phone or snail mail to do the same thing. From what I can tell, they're looking at giving her up to 20 years solely for violating MySpace's terms of service. That's messed up. ToS's shouldn't have that much power."

Nothing in your reply contradicts any of that. You're attacking a straw man.

Nobody's saying she shouldn't be punished. What ElBruce is suggesting is she should be prosecuted for harrassment, not fraud.

[Nikola Tesla]

She DID seduce a minor.

[meemu]

I agree that this woman went way beyond saying "something mean" to this girl. She stalked her and executed a plan meant to hurt her emotionally, though she may not have intended her to die. When the girl did die, I think that would qualify as manslaughter. The thought that people like Drew are responsible for raising and educating children in right and wrong, makes me really disgusted. I can only hope that she gets what she deserves, in this world or the next.

[SueW0]

Yes, this had little or nothing to do with computers or the internet or Myspace. They call it "cyberbullying" as if it was something new, but harassment is harassment, no matter what the medium.