Myspace Terror Mom violated “Terms and Conditions”
November 27, 2008 · By Charles Anthony
The twisted vindictive mother who pretended to be a love-struck boy was convicted of violating the “Terms and Conditions” of the Myspace social networking site. She plotted to break the heart of one of her daughter’s “friends” knowing the girl was already suffering from depression. The poor girl committed suicide. The daughter had to testify against her mother and got immunity for confessing that she participated in the taunting.
Wow.
Thankfully, there was the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to get her on a technicality otherwise the world would be anarchy! I guess I am not the only one who is less than impressed.
The problem here isn’t that they sought and got a conviction, Matt Levine may feel that there is not a law that covers every bad thing in the world is correct to say it’s bad to use laws that have very different purpose and Goldman may agree but this does not mean that the prosecutors had no option here but to let her get away with it and lobby to amend the Criminal Code.
The prosecutors could have been truly creative like seeking to convict ‘fairly’ under TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 43 > § 911 (I mean this imaginary boy was certainly represented as a bright eyed new murrican boy in town no?) or better yet found a more appropriate criminal offense instead of choosing to so clearly stretch the bounds of credulity.
They were presenting the jury with a clear criminal action but presented them no roadway between the crime they claimed and arriving at a realistic conviction and thus the lessened charges.
The result, we have a weak conviction and nothing to applaud but yeah aaaaand you’d prefer they not pursue her criminally? They just did it in a really unprofessional way.