In a Los Angeles federal court on Monday, a Missouri born woman who was blamed for the suicide of a 13-yr old pleaded not guilty.
The woman’s name is Lori Drew and she is 49 years old. On Monday, she stood beside her lawyer and pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiracy and for using protected computers without authorization (to get information to maliciously cause emotional distress). Lori Drew is now free on $20,000 bail.
The hearing only took a few minutes and as they left the courthouse, Lori Drew and her attorney refused to comment to reporters that were stationed outside the courtroom. Ms.Drew is from suburban St. Louis Missouri and has been accused of aiding to create a MySpace account that would belong to a fictitious 16-yr old boy named Josh Evans.
Lori Drew’s daughter was a friend of the 13-yr old girl whose name was Megan Meier. The fake account that Drew helped to create was used to send messages to the girl, harassing her and abusing her mentally. There was even a message that stated that the world would be a better place without her. All these threats and harassments prompted little Megan to hang herself in 2006.
Ms. Drew has denied ever being involved in the creation of this account, or in sending any messages to Meier. News Corp owns Fox Interactive Media Inc, and MySpace is a subsidiary of this corp. Drew’s case was sent to District court Judge George Wu and her trial will be scheduled for July 29th. Each of the four charges against Ms. Drew all carry a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison. A status conference will be held on June 26th and U.S. attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek has claimed that Lori Drew will be allowed to return to her home pending her trial.
Source: MSNBC
