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First Woman Charged Under Missouri's Cyberharassment Law for Harassing a Minor
Written by Denise Pellow
Monday, 14 September 2009 22:28
A St. Charles County, Missouri woman has been charged with felony harassment against a minor after she allegedly posted a sexually suggestive ad on casual encounters section of Craigslist to humiliate a 17-year-old girl, who is the daughter of her ex-husband's girlfriend. Elizabeth Thrasher, 40 of St. Peters, is the first adult charged under Missouri's Cyberharassment Law passed in June 2008.
The new cyberharassment law was enacted in Missouri and other states followed suit in response to the Megan Meier tragedy. Megan, also from St. Charles County, committed suicide after being bullied on the Internet by minor teens and an adult neighbor, Lori Drew. Drew as charged with three misdemeanor counts of unauthorized access to computers for violating MySpace's terms of use.
While a jury convicted Drew in November 2008 on all counts, the federal judge in the case, George Wu, overruled and acquitted Lori Drew of all charges on July 2, 2009.
In the Thrasher case, she is accused of posting the girl's cell phone number, her email address and a photo of the 17-year-old she obtained from her MySpace page, indicated she was interested in a sexual encounter.
Almost immediately the minor began receiving offensive calls and emails, texts and pornographic photos from people she did not know. She reported the activity to the St. Charles County Police, Lt. Craig McGuire said the current situation began during an online argument between Thrasher, the girl and her mother, again on MySpace, when the teen told Thrasher "to grow up." Read More...
The decision today in the Lori Drew case reinforces our mission at KidsBeSafeOnline and in my new book The Five Dangerous Trends Concerning Kids, Technology and the Internet that it is more important than ever to educate parents about the dangers that can happen through technology and that awareness is power in the prevention of bad things that can happen to our children because of the technologies they use.
My heart goes out to Tina Meier and her family, and we must remember Tina was very instrumental as we passed the law in Missouri, Senate Bill 818 that protects Missouri children 17 and under from cyberharassment by an adult and most other states have adopted and passed similar legislation in their states as well.
We have to remember as parents, educators and as adults that prevention is key and by providing the information on a large scale will make great progress in bringing protection to children who use these types of technologies. Read about the Acquittal by Kim Zetter
Unless Judge Wu decides to continue the sentencing hearing again for Lori Drew, who is now nationally known as an adult who cyberbullied a child, Megan Meier, by setting up a fictitious MySpace account in the name of "Josh Evans." and lead 13-year old Megan into a relationship with the fictitious "Josh" only for the relationship to turn mean, Megan committed suicide 20 minutes after getting offline with the invented personality. Lori Drew faces a sentence of up to three years in prison and a fine of $300,000 for violating the terms of service on MySpace. Read full story...
Let us know your thoughts on what Lori Drew's sentence should be?
