Lori Drew Is Guilty
Although the jury could not find her guilty on any of the felony charge against her, Lori Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor charges. Each count is punishable with up to 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
To recap the story, Lori Drew’s then 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and one of her best friends, Megan Meier, had a fight and ended their friendship; as is common when you are 13-years-old. Lori Drew and two others (an 18-year-old employee of Drew’s and Drew’s daughter) created a fake MySpace account and pretending to be a good-looking teenager named Josh. They had “Josh” become friends with Megan so they could see what Megan saying about Sarah. Megan began an online with relationship with “Josh” where “Josh” called Megan “sexi” and told her he loved her. Eventually Drew and accomplices ended the relationship with Megan by having “Josh” say some pretty nasty things to Megan including something to the effect that the world would be better off without her. After that online correspondence Megan killed herself.
The Missouri community in which Drew and the Meier family live in was outraged. However, Missouri does not have any cyberbulling laws and had nothing to charge her with. There are no federal laws on cyberbulling either, but prosecutors decided to charge her with violating the federal Computer Fraud & Abuse Act.
If always been kind of iffy on this case. The Computer Fraud & Abuse Act wasn’t created for this kind of case. And people create fake MySpace pages all the time for very innocent reasons. Part of the appeal of the internet is the ability to be anonymous.
But I also think Lori Drew needs to be held accountable. What kind of mother conspires with her daughter to create a fake MySpace page to spy on and torture an old friend? I always considered it my job as a mother to help my children learn from their mistakes. They need to learn that sometimes friendships end and we move on. We don’t come up with elaborate schemes to humiliate other people. I’m not surprised that a 13-year-old would do something like that, but an adult?
And Lori Drew didn’t just know this was going on. She encouraged it. And she participated in it. Where is her sense of morality? That is just disgusting to think a grown woman, a mother would partake in something like this.
Plus this wasn’t just some girl her daughter used to be friends with. Lori Drew knew Megan and her family. And she knew them well. Sarah and Megan had been friends nearly their whole lives. Megan had been to the Drew house many, man times. She had even vacationed with them. Lori was well aware that Megan had self-esteem issues and suffered from depression and still went along with this prank. It’s just unbelievable.
So what do you think? Do you think justice prevailed in this case? Are you happy to see a conviction for Lori Drew?
Lori Drew is a sociopath and a lousy mother. That is pretty much a given. I don’t see her acts, however dickish, as criminal. In America, it isn’t illegal to lie to your neighbors and mess with their heads.
More painful to me than Lori’s role in this drama is the role Megan’s parents didn’t play. Where were her parents? How could they could not moderate Megan’s emotional state or at least her physical activities? Why hadn’t they met Josh? Why were they not involved enough in her life to see what was going on? Isn’t that their job?
Lori made horrible choices as a parent (and human being) but at least she was involved in Sarah’s life enough to know who the players were as well as the game.
Megan’s parents didn’t know the game, they didn’t know the players. They were asleep at the switch from everything I had read. Why would Megan’s parents not have asked to meet Josh, the love of her life? Why hadn’t he been over for dinner? Why was Megan spending hours at the computer? Where was the supervision? Why hadn’t Megan’s parents explained that sometimes people are just evil, cruel and obnoxious and teach her coping skills?
Even before she was born, I have been telling my daughter, Hope, there are evil, cruel, rude, obnoxious people in this world and there is 100% NOTHING she can do about it (http://tellthem.com/evil-cruel-rude-obnoxious-people/). Nothing, except live her life as best she can and minimize their role in her life.
My daughter will fall deeply in love and be hurt. What happens after she is dumped will say more about her character than how she acted when she was in love. No teenage boy is worth death.
—Isis