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(AP Photo/Nick Ut)
By LINDA DEUTSCH
AP Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jurors on Tuesday began deliberating whether a Missouri mother conspired with her daughter and an assistant to harass a 13-year-old girl with Internet messages that allegedly prompted the girl's suicide.
In Monday's closing arguments, prosecutors stressed the emotional component -- the suicide of Megan Meier, who was allegedly drawn into an Internet ruse devised by Lori Drew, the mother of Megan's one-time best friend.
She is accused of conspiring with her daughter, Sarah, then 13, and her 18-year-old assistant to cause emotional distress to Megan.
U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien portrayed Drew, 49, as the guiding force in a "mean" plan to humiliate Megan by inventing a make-believe boy who would woo her on the MySpace Web site, then be revealed as nonexistent.
"Lori Drew decided to humiliate a child," O'Brien said in his summation. "The only way she could harm this pretty little girl was with a computer. She chose to use a computer to hurt a little girl and for four weeks she enjoyed it."
The defense said the case is a matter of computer law and accused prosecutors of misleading jurors into thinking it was a murder case.
"If you hadn't heard the indictment read to you, you'd think this was a homicide case," said Dean Steward, a defense attorney. "And it's not a homicide case. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a computer case, and that's what you need to decide."
Steward insisted the only question is whether Drew violated the terms-of-service agreement of MySpace. He said that Drew, her daughter and assistant Ashley Grills never read the seven-page agreement.
"Nobody reads these things, nobody," he said. "How can you violate something when you haven't even read it? End of case. The case is over."
The case is being prosecuted in Los Angeles because MySpace computer servers are based in the area.
Drew has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and accessing computers without authorization. She could be sentenced to as many as 20 years in prison if convicted of all counts.
O'Brien and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause painted a dark saga of computer-based harassment involving two girls who lived four doors apart from each other in a small Missouri town.
Krause told of Drew's alleged plan to invent an imaginary boy called Josh Evans who would communicate online with Megan to find out whether Megan was spreading rumors about her daughter.
The prosecution showed the jury the photo that was used on the fake MySpace profile -- a bare-chested boy with tousled brown hair.
Krause said Drew told her daughter and the then-18-year-old Grills what to write, to make the messages "flirty." And he said Megan fell in love with the imaginary boy.
In so doing, he said, Drew violated the MySpace rules.
"The rules are fairly simple," he said. "You don't lie. You don't pretend to be someone else. You don't use the site to harass others. They harassed Megan Meier."
Both prosecutors reminded jurors of testimony that Megan had been under treatment for depression, and Sarah, in testimony before final arguments, said she was aware Megan had been taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist.
"The defendant knew that she was dealing with a troubled little girl who was extremely fragile, and yet she did it anyway," Krause said.
The hoax ended with Megan never finding out that her online boyfriend did not exist. On Oct. 16, 2006, according to testimony, a message was sent from "Josh Evans" to Megan telling her the world would be better off without her. Shortly afterward, the girl went to her room and hanged herself in a closet. She died the next day.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
