Megan Meier

A woman who impersonated a teenage boy on MySpace — which allegedly led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl — has been laden with four separate federal charges, each of which could result in as many as five years in prison.

Defendant Lori Drew stands accused of creating a false MySpace account under the name Josh Evans in 2006. Hoping to learn whether a 13-year-old girl named Megan Meier was spreading hurtful words about her daughter Sarah, with whom Megan was once friends, Drew used the account to first attract, then taunt, her.

Nasty messages from "Josh" — who at first seemed romantically interested in Megan — escalated to the point where Megan was told "the world would be a better place" without her. Megan replied, "You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over," then hung herself in her home.

The cyber-drama occurred in a small town outside of St. Louis, Mo. The US attorney in Los Angeles claimed jurisdiction over the case because MySpace — a unit of Fox Interactive Media — keeps its servers and corporate headquarters in LA county.

Megan had a history of depression and suicidal thoughts, reports The New York Times. Prosecutors say Drew was aware of this, but continued to "prey on her psyche" and "embarrass her, to humiliate her, to make fun of her and to hurt her."

Defending counsel argued Drew did not send these messages. Rather, an employee of hers and other young girls sent the damaging messages, and Drew wouldn't know the first thing about setting up a fake MySpace account.

But regardless of whether the jury believed this construction, "this is a computer abuse and fraud case, not a homicide case," the attorney reminded the courtroom.

Jurers were asked to decide whether Drew was guilty of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization (via interstate commerce) to obtain information for the purpose of inflicting emotional distress. The suicide could be incorporated into their conclusions about the charges, but Drew was not on trail for playing an active part in Megan's death.

In Jan. '07, families in New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina brought a civil suit against MySpace, alleging that adult users on the social network solicited and sexually assaulted their daughters.

A federal judge dismissed the Texas case, saying that MySpace was protected under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 from being held liable for material posted on its site by others.

The girl and her mother appealed the case in April '08, maintaining MySpace still had a responsibility to protect the girl — even though she lied about her age and the resulting attack took place outside MySpace, TechDirt writes.