Alleged cyberbully mother officially charged

On Thursday, Gina Keating reported with Reuters the trial against Lori Drew in Los Angeles County federal courts is finally underway. Wednesday marked the opening arguments made by U.S. Attorney Thomas O& 39;Brien and defense attorney H. Dean Steward.

The tragic case stems back to October of 2006. After receiving a series malicious online messages sent through popular social networking website MySpace.com, 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide by hanging herself in her bedroom closet. Battling depression and extreme self-esteem issues, the final message—stating the “world would be better off” without her, proved to be the final blow.

Three individuals were help responsible with creating the fake account of Josh Evans from which the messages were sent. Megan believed she was chatting with a cute 16-year-old boy, but she was unknowingly passing messages to 49-year-old Drew, her daughter (a former friend of Meier’s), and Ashley Grills, an employee of Drew’s. The three created a friendly, flirty rapport under the alias of Josh before crushing Megan with extraordinarily cruel messages.

Drew escaped prosecution in her home state of Missouri, but the DA office in Los Angeles County, where MySpace operates its servers, assumed jurisdiction. She has officially been charged Drew with “conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information for the purpose of inflicting emotional distress;” the four counts against her “each carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison,” according to the AP.

For many, the case against Drew is open and shut: her reckless harassment led to the heartbreaking suicide of a troubled young girl. But the defense attorney believes that Drew should not be held responsible for the final outcome of the event. Steward claimed in court that the last several messages from the false Josh Evans account were written and sent by Grills, the teen employee of Drew.

In fact, defense attorneys claimed that a specific message referenced by the prosecution was “sent when Lori Drew was on the road and not at home.” Lastly, they maintain that the MySpace account for Evans was not created on Drew’s “household computer.” Only time will tell if these defense tactics will hold up in court.

Since the death of Megan, rules, regulations, and statewide laws have gone into effect throughout the country, outlawing what has come to be known as “cyberbullying.” Megan’s home state of Missouri passed a law back in July of this year, redefining harassment: “harassment” is no longer legally defined as “communication... written or over the telephone.” Now, taking into consideration the influence and popularity of other technologies, the bill encompasses harassment “from computers, text messages and other electronic devices.”

Other states, such as California, have also joined the battle against cyberbullying, to help ensure that tragedies like that of Megan’s never happen again.