Prosecutors Defend Charges Against Lori Drew From O’Fallon

By Sarah Wienke

The federal government is defending its use of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to prosecute Lori Drew, the O’Fallon woman accused of harassing a teen by creating a fake online identity on MySpace.

On Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark C. Krause filed three oppositions to objections made by the defense that Drew did not violate the law.

Last month, Drew’s attorney, H. Dean Steward, filed three documents in federal court in Los Angeles requesting that the indictment be dismissed, maintaining that the law being used to prosecute her is unconstitutionally vague and that the prosecution has failed to state her offense.

The case stems from the fall of 2006, when Drew allegedly created the fictitious profile “Josh Evans,” a 16-year-old boy, and communicated with 13-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie over a period of 29 days. Megan hanged herself on Oct. 16, 2006, soon after receiving the message, “The world would be a better place without you.”

In May, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Drew on a felony conspiracy charge and three charges of illegally accessing MySpace computers, or intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization. She could face up to five years in prison for each count. Federal prosecutors say she violated MySpace’s rules and terms of service by using false information to set up an account, which she and up to four others allegedly used to harass Megan.

In Krause’s opposition documents, he dismissed the defendant’s argument that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has a limited scope.

“Since its inception, the act was intended to serve as the principle statute to address computer-related crimes and was designed to be flexible enough to address changing circumstances,” the document said.

“Cyberbullying is a relatively new phenomenon, as is social networking. It is, therefore, not surprising that there have been relatively few prosecutions in this area … the statute does not threaten to criminalize widespread conduct. Because the government must show that defendant acted with the requisite criminal scienter, there is no risk of criminalizing innocent, let alone negligent behavior.”

Krause upheld the prosecution’s indictment that Drew violated MySpace’s terms of service by using false information to set up an account.

The defense was challenging that indictment, saying it is unconstitutional to delegate governmental powers to private parties. Under the prosecutions’ argument, “almost any computer owner can set up whatever arbitrary and unique rules they want, and a violation of those rules and lead to a… prosecution,” Steward argued in court papers.

Krause countered that the statute is no more unconstitutional than laws prohibiting trespassing, assault or theft of trade secrets.

A hearing on the case will be held in federal court Sept. 4 in Los Angeles. Trial is set for Oct. 7.

Originally published by Sarah Wienke.

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