If I believed in hell, I’d agree that she’s a person you’ll see there. Number one in Radar’s list of the worst people online, and richly deserved: Like Al Capone, she’ll escape the charges she deserves yet probably can’t be convicted of in favor of more mundane financial charges that’ll send her away for a long, long time. Here’s hoping:
A 49-year-old Missouri woman accused of pretending to be a love-struck teenage boy on MySpace and driving a 13-year-old girl to suicide with cruel messages was indicted on Thursday on federal charges…
Experts said the indictment, which was handed down in Los Angeles after Missouri authorities declined to prosecute Drew, was a first of its kind and could stretch the bounds of the federal statute on which it was based…
Lonergan said Drew was charged with accessing a protected computer to obtain information, a statute typically used against defendants who hack into government computers.
“While I think most people agree that it merits punishment to harass a young girl to the point where she commits suicide, it’s not clear that this conduct is covered by this federal statute,” she said…
Drew, who faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison if she is convicted on all of the charges, was expected to surrender to authorities in Missouri.
Suzy’s Law might have taken care of this but it’s not on the books yet. Here’s the statute I think they’re planning to charge her under, which seems dicey. I sympathize with any legislature trying to write a bill to deal with this sort of crime, in which definite psychological harm is intended but perhaps not the sort of grievous outcome that resulted here. Exit question: How do you criminalize cruelty?
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