Legal News

Conviction Tossed in MySpace-Suicide Case

By Ashby Jones

This just in: a federal judge in Los Angeles has tentatively thrown out the convictions of Lori Drew, a Missouri mother, for Drew’s role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. Click here for the early AP story.

In his ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge George Wu has acquitted Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization. Wu says his ruling will become final when he issues it in writing. Drew was convicted in a trial, but the judge says that if she is to be found guilty of illegally accessing computers, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site’s terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Prosecutors had sought the maximum three-year prison sentence and a $300,000 fine.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 02, 2009 (boomark / email).