I hope they try her in Texas. If spitting gets you 35 years, well...

She's also a pariah to her entire community now. That's karma, Lori.

I haven't been so upset about a grown adult woman posing as a teenaged boy since I saw Sandy Duncan as Peter Pan. What... it was confusing...

I hope they throw the book at this lady and the three or four other complicit parties in this nasty middle American Shakespearean update.

In the New Yorker article, there was that little tidbit that still fascinates me. Drew was part (or mastermind) of the scheme to torture the girl, yet she also had that same family store a foosball table that Drew intended to give her kids as a holiday gift.

That's just nervy.

Can these laws also be used to prosecute other internet, um, personalities?

Lori Drew: may your life, going forward, in whatever setting it may take place, be a singular type of fiery Hell reserved and custom-fitted just for you.

That's awesome. Totally made my Friday morning. Now all I need to see is an appearance of Mr. Ketch (not at my door! Someone else's!) and my weekend will begin! Now that I think about it, any possibility of sending Mr. Ketch to dispatch of this woman???

I agree that the internet has probably run its course and should now be shut down. It was fun for a while, but now we are learning its negative side. Let's pick a date to end it, and then wait for the next new thing to come along.

@famousauthor: I've already reverted to print as my vector for pornography.

@Hiphopopotamus: Trust me, Missouri is right on the heels of Texas as far as backwardness is concerned, so I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The charge is that she committed fraud in using MySpace services because she did not comply with the MySpace terms of services, which required her to provide her real personal information in the registration. Basically, we are criminals now, because we all have (or could be accused of having) violated just about every website's terms of service. The TOS is usually understood as a means for the website to limit its liability and not as an actual code of conduct. For example, here's part of Gawker's TOS:

In order to make our comments useful and interesting, the following guidelines have been established for comment users:

Do not post threatening, harassing, defamatory, or libelous material.
Do not intentionally make false or misleading statements.
Do not offer to sell or buy any product or service.
Do not post material that infringes copyright.
Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law.
Keep all comments relevant to the particular GM Site where the comment is being posted.

I'm sure a prosecutor who wanted to harass we commenters could cook up an indictment pretty easily.

The indictment has nothing to do with the wrong she did, it's just an abuse of prosecutorial power, punishing her by harassing her with legal proceedings that will go absolutely nowhere - she will never be convicted of anything, and I wouldn't be surprised if the indictment just gets thrown out by the first judge to read it. If anything, it will make it clear to other internet bullies that they don't have to worry about prosecution. And that's how it should be.

Yuck- come on, we have all acted egregiously on the internet, but this is startling. Sure I have writtena few emails regarding complicated relationships virtual based (either from the get go, or in its current emanation), but it has always been deserved/warranted/justified by me/myself/my online avatar. I don't know how this is going to pan out, but it is such an extreme rarity. It's like if John Fitzgerald Page Whatevs or Matt Sanchez offed themselves in reaction to our online warfare. Anywho, makes you think:(

@Ed:

Yup, which the victim's mother smashed into a thousand pieces on Drew's front lawn as retribution. I admire her restraint.

I think an appropriate punishment would be to force her to go back to junior high. Forever.

@it takes a train to cry: And by "abuse of prosecutorial power," you mean, "actually punishing the people responsible," right? Yeah, it's a loophole. But it's a good one to punish this stupid, evil cow for intentionally fucking with the mind of a suicidal pre-teen.

Speaking as someone who spent over a year being cyber-stalked by someone using multiple fake personalities, and not being able to get any law enforcement help, I'm glad to see this indictment.

@sassypants: You mean Ketch is for hire? I thought he acted alone. You know, like Lee Harvey Oswald. Or Pee Wee Herman.

@Tammany_Fall: Don't you go getting my hopes up that Pee Wee Herman is an assassin.

Not sure if Ketch is for hire. I don't know if he's ever been asked. But perhaps if we said "Please" and sent him a lovely bundt cake......

@it takes a train to cry: You may be correct, that it will be thrown out quickly, but it will not only make it clear to internet bullies that they need not worry about prosecution, it will also make it clear to state/federal legislatures that they need to "get to law-makin'" (as they say in Missoura).

Reading stories like this just strengthens my hypothesis that this internet thing is never really going to catch on.

@sassypants: I'm pretty sure Ketch said that he takes bribes, etc.

To a normal person, the burden and guilt that she must live with might be her own personal hell. But then again a normal person would not have gone on line to pose as a teenager's boyfriend only to back stab her into her suicidal death.

@it takes a train to cry: the reason that tact has been taken is because she didn't actually do anything other than be aware of what was going on. the people operating the account were two other neighbor kids that did work for her. don't get me wrong, i think she rightly deserves to be made a pariah. i don't agree with the prosecutorial path that has been chosen for the reasons you state. the TOS have never been recognized as a legal contract, nor should they. they should hold a place right about the same as Code of the Order of the Brethren.

@sassypants: Wonderful to enjoy this, I agree. I worry, though, will our esteemed editor-in-chief be persecuted now???

Should the punishment fit the crime, we have a public execution to look forward to, folks

I read her blog last year; it was like reading the justifications of a 14 year old. Perhaps she is one of the people who have no real conscience...

@sassypants: I don't know if PWH is an assassin; I do know that he's a loner and a rebel.
But agreed that Bundt cakes succeed where all other forms of diplomacy fail. Why the U.N. hasn't tried this is beyond me.

@valarmorghulis: Yeah, see I read that too. That her daughter was being taunted by the girl that has since took her life, and the mom suggested that she make the account to screw with her. Damn, I may tell my kid to do the same.. standing up for yourself and such.

Direct quote from an AP article- "Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.

Grills said Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.

Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her. The message was supposed to end the online relationship with "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.

"I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show."

Not really sure how I feel about all this. Obviously it was immature of the woman to be involved. But now her life is ruined and I don't know if it is warranted, espeicially if this other gal did all/most of the dirty work. Is she not being charged because she was 17 when it all went down?

The problem is not Lori Drew but rather why would a girl that was emotionally played with by a stranger kill herself.

An adult.
Had this idea.
To harass a child.
And got others to do her dirty work.
Get her ass.

@Lamburger Helper: I agree. Honestly, imagine if Julia Allison killed herself every time a Gawker commenter told her to just die. She'd be dead. A lot.

We're all part of the same hypocrisy here.

@Lamburger Helper: Adolescence is rough for many teens. And some people are more fragile than others. Way harsh...

@SneakingThroughTheAlleyWithLalley: Or she's been coached to lie about who did what because she won't face the jail time an adult would.

Pure conjecture on my part, but given the parties involved, not much of a stretch, I think.

@Lamburger Helper: Of course the child who hanged herself must have had other serious emotional issues, but this triggered her suicide. In general, the law says you take your victims as you find them. What she did is similar to pulling a gun on someone with a serious heart condition who then keels over and dies.

They took down Al Capone on tax charges, and they are taking this woman down with TOS violations. I don't see this womans actions being very different from the adults who serve kids alcohol who then go and wrap their car around a tree. Adults should know better than kids. This woman put the tools in the kids hands. As for Myspace, I have yet to find any redeeming qualities to it except for checking out a new band. I've seen it bring massive jealousy and insecurity to otherwise sane balanced people when it comes to dating and relationships. Comments are easily misconstrued, flirting becomes cheating and how many times do I see people putting their email and phone numbers in comments on public pages?! I can't explain more how much I hate Myspace.

@SneakingThroughTheAlleyWithLalley: ...her daughter was being taunted by the girl that has since took her life, and the mom suggested that she make the account to screw with her. Damn, I may tell my kid to do the same.. standing up for yourself and such.

That is not standing up for yourself. Standing up for yourself would have been the daughter telling the (now dead) girl to fuck off, not psychologically torturing her.

@maevemealone: Well it is fairly obvious that the redeeming quality of myspace is to stalk exboyfriends and see if their new girlfriends are a dress size bigger than you.

@Lamburger Helper: Blame the victim? What's the matter with you?

@CaptainFantastic: @Tammany_Fall: I'm thrilled to know our own home-grown executioner could be dispatched to whack (as it were) other non-Gawker entities. Warms the spot where my heart should be.

Agreed re: bundt cakes. I make the most delightful ones. But for serious negotiations, I always lead with my peanut butter cookies. I could have freed Nelson Mandela with a batch of those.

@Shariahpants: Never!! Our EIC is above the law......sort of.....I hope.....

@SneakingThroughTheAlleyWithLalley: You see that's all I use it for! And yes, some of them are bigger but ALL are a lot uglier. Ok that part is redeeming. It just used to be so much easier when you had no idea what/who your ex's were doing.

A myspace profile -- a "person" she has never met in three dimensions, in living, breathing reality -- tells her to kill herself.

Yeah, I don't know what to do for ya'.

@maevemealone: it was, I long for the days where I could daydream, "man, I wish he was dead" and it could be one of the many possibilities. Now myspace insists I know what city he lives in, how much he makes, how blonde is new girlfriend is, and what song he is currently listening too. Damned internets.

@CaptainFantastic: I don't know where you matriculated as a youngster because when I was 13 retaliating was never as simple as go fuck off.

What a piece of shit this lady is. It's hard to imagine having or making the time to do something as horrendous as taunting a preteen girl to death...online. Put her in prison. Throw away the key. She's a killer.

@richardmarxhatesmyhair: What if a real life boy tells a teen/preteen girl she's ugly and she needs to kill herself, which she proceeds to do. Are you going to prosecute the boy?? Throw away the key. He is a killer, right? Technically.

@crooked_teeth: She is an ADULT. She went out of her way, repeatedly to taunt and antagonize a CHILD. You don' t think this girl was already being told she was ugly at school? Save it for Springer, C_T.

@richardmarxhatesmyhair: Not to mention she allegedly knew Megan suffered from depression.
She also, as "Josh" told Megan to "touch my snake."
[www.thesmokinggun.com]

Fucked up.

And to think she did this at HOME and not at work like the rest of us!

DISCLAIMER: Not hurting kids.

@cassandra:

@crooked_teeth:

I think the real crux of the matter is that you have a grown woman emotionally manipulating a teenaged girl. That's really different when cyberbullying happens between peers.

If I remember correctly, this woman also knew that the girl has a history of depression.

Look, I agree that the application of the law is shaky but something really needs to happen to this lady. Seriously.