On Thursday, a Missouri woman was indicted on federal charges for fraudulently using an detail on MySpace. The woman posed as a teenage boy who feigned romantic interest in a 13-year-old girl, Megan Meier, who later committed suicide after the “boy” spurned her and told her, among other things, that the world would be a better place without her.

Lori Drew, 49, of O’Fallon, Mo., was named in a four-count indictment returned Thursday dawn by a federal grand jury. The indictment charges one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain data to inflict emotional distress on the girl who, considering of juvenile privacy rules, is referred to in the indictment only as M.T.M.

“This adult woman allegedly used the World Wide Web to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications,” U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien said. “After a thorough observation, we have charged Ms. Drew with criminally accessing MySpace and violating rules

established to protect young, vulnerable citizens. Any adult who uses the World Wide Web or a social-gathering Web site to bully or harass another person, particularly a young teenage girl, needs to realize that their actions can have serious consequences.”

An Unromantic Conspiracy

The indictment alleges that Drew, along with others, registered as a member of MySpace under the name “Josh Evans.” Drew and her co-conspirators next used the Josh Evans history to contact M.T.M. and began what the girl believed was an online romance with a 16-year-old boy.

In taking those actions, the indictment alleges, Drew and her co-conspirators violated MySpace’s terms of service that prohibit users from, among other things, using sham registration data, using accounts to obtain personal knowledge about juvenile members, and using the MySpace communication services to harass, abuse or harm other members.

After approximately four weeks of flirtatious communications within “Josh Evans” and…

Orginal post by Top Tech News