May 15, 2008 1:12 pm US/Pacific
Mom Indicted For Cyber-Bullying In Girl's Suicide
LOS ANGELES
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Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., was charged with conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization.
CBS
A woman accused of "cyber-bullying" a 13-year-old girl into committing suicide was indicted Thursday.
Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., is accused of setting up an account on MySpace.com, along with others, to pose as a 16-year-old boy, "Josh Evans," in 2006.
Ashley Grills, a 19-year-old employee of Drew's, told "Good Morning America" that she created the fake MySpace profile, but said Drew wrote some of the messages.
She said it was Drew's idea to find Meier on the Internet and see what she was saying about Drew's daughter, a former friend.
Pretending to be Evans, Drew and others allegedly expressed a romantic interest in the girl, Megan Meier, and then spurned her, saying, among other things, that the world would be better off without her.
Meier hanged herself in October 2006, shortly after receiving that message.
Drew was charged with conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information about the victim in violation of MySpace's terms of service.
The charges all carry five-year prison terms.
Drew is scheduled to be arraigned in Los Angeles in June.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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