MySpace User Who Posed As Teenager Indicted in Girl's Suicide
By SCOTT GLOVER,
LOS ANGELES — A federal grand jury yesterday indicted a woman of fraudulently using a MySpace.com account to "cyber-bully" a Missouri teenager who later hanged herself because she believed she was being rejected by a 16-year-old boy she met on the social networking Web site.
Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., faces three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl and one count of conspiracy.
The case set off a furor when it was disclosed that 13-year-old Megan Meier was the victim of a hoax perpetrated by Ms. Drew, who was the mother of one of the girl's former friends.
Authorities in Missouri investigated Meier's October 2006 death but declined to file charges against Drew, saying they were unable to find a statute under which to pursue a criminal case.
Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles launched a grand jury investigation aimed at determining whether Drew or others defrauded Beverly Hills-based MySpace by providing false information to the site.
As word leaked that an indictment was pending Thursday, Megan's father, Ron Meier, said he welcomed any attempt to hold someone accountable.
"I don't know who is actually is going to end up paying for what happened to our daughter. I just want some justice after all this time," Meier said.
