Legal News

Lori Drew Pleads Not Guilty in MySpace Suicide Case

By Dan Slater

For eager-beaver law grads looking to work on cutting-edge cases, consider the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California. Yesterday, as Thomas P. O’Brien, the head of the office, was putting to rest the drawn out prosecution of Milberg LLP — with the firm agreeing to pay $75 million to settle charges that it paid kickbacks to clients — he turned his attention to another high-profile case: the so-called MySpace suicide.

On Monday, according to the AP, Lori Drew pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization. The theory of the case seems to be that when Drew registered on MySpace she agreed to certain terms of service that required her to, among other things, provide “truthful and accurate registration information” and “refrain from promoting information that” she knew was “false or misleading.”

Here’s the backstory: According to this January New Yorker article and last month’s indictment, Drew — under the guise of “Josh” — struck up a flirtatious online relationship with Megan Meier, a 13-year old MySpace member, that lasted for several weeks. “Josh” allegedly told Megan she was “sexi” and made other sexually suggestive overtures. Then, “Josh” told Megan he was moving away and that the world would be a better place without her. After “Josh” broke off the relationship, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom.

Yesterday, according to reports, Drew sat quietly in the courtroom before entering her plea in front of Magistrate Judge Paul L. Abrams. Her lawyer, H. Dean Steward, told reporters she would have no comment.

Drew’s case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge George Wu and her trial scheduled for July 29. A status conference was scheduled for June 26. She was allowed to return to Missouri on $20,000 bail. Each of the four counts against Drew carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien has acknowledged this is the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 17, 2008 (boomark / email).