"A federal grand jury has indicted a mother on charges relating to harassment on MySpace, which preceded a 13-year-old girl's suicide.
The indictment, returned Thursday in Los Angeles, marks the first time that a social networking site user has been prosecuted on federal charges related to accessing protected computers.
Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., has been charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on a 13-year-old girl, Megan Meier. Because of juvenile privacy rules, the victim -- who killed herself after receiving taunts on MySpace -- is referred to in the indictment only as M.T.M.
Prosecutors said Drew posed as a teenage boy who feigned romantic interest in the victim. The "boy" later told the girl during an online chat in October 2006 that the world would be a better place without her. Less than an hour later, Meier hanged herself. She died the next day."
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