MySpace Mommy Indicted

(andPOP) - A Missouri woman alleged to have created a phony MySpace page which resulted in the suicide of a teenage girl has been indicted by a grand jury today.

Lori Drew has been charged with conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to get information.

In 2006, thirteen year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after receiving mean messages from “Josh Evans”, a boy she was friends with online.

Meier suffered from depression and was on medication.

Drew is alleged to have helped her daughter – a former friend of Meier’s – create the MySpace account pretending to be Evans to find out if Meier’s had been spreading rumours about her daughter.

The indictment charges that Drew and other conspirators, who were not named in the indictment, used the information they obtained while pretending to be Evans to “torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass” Meier’s.

MySpace’s terms of agreement state that, members should not promote false or misleading information; solicit personal information from anyone under age 18 or use information gathered from the social networking site to "harass, abuse or harm other people."

After Meier committed suicide, it is alleged that Drew and her conspirator’s deleted the phony account.

Although Drew denies ever creating the account, in April, Ashley Grills, an employee of Drew’s told “Good Morning America” that she created the phony account but that Drew was the one who sent messages to Meier.
Police officials initially told Meier’s parents that they couldn’t lay charges because no laws pertaining to the case existed.

Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, said that FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case.

Both Meier and MySpace have been named as victims in the indictment.

Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and then tried in Los Angeles where MySpace is based. She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.