Lori Drew cyber-bullying decision expected today

Lori Drew cyber-bullying decision expected today


ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

01/08/2009
The lawyer for Lori Drew says the judge in her cyber-bullying trial has promised to rule today on a request to dismiss a jury's guilty verdicts on three misdemeanors.

Some legal scholars have long said that charges against Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., were a stretch of anti-hacking laws. So far, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu neither accepted nor rejected the latest defense arguments to that effect.

Drew lived in Dardenne Prairie in 2006 when a rival of her teenage daughter, neighbor Megan Meier, 13, hanged herself. Officials said Drew, her daughter and a business associate had sent hateful Internet messages to Meier under the name of a fictitious boy.

Federal and state prosecutors in the St. Louis area said they found no crime in it. But the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles obtained an indictment against Drew that accused her of criminally misusing access to the California-based MySpace social network.

On Nov. 26, jurors there rejected three felony charges but found Drew guilty of three misdemeanors. The jury deadlocked on one felony conspiracy count. The prosecution later filed papers to dismiss it, but Wu has not signed them, officials said.

Dean Steward, Drew's attorney, said, "We have filed a gazillion papers, and he's promised us a written ruling" today.


Attorneys may argue their sides one more time, but neither will be allowed to present more evidence. The hearing is at 11 a.m. St. Louis time.

If Wu lets the verdicts stand, he will schedule Drew for sentencing later, prosecutors said. She faces up to three years in prison and a $300,000 fine, but under federal guidelines she is more likely to get probation.