Dardenne Prairie, Mo. (The Weekly Vice) - You're getting warmer. Warmer. Now you're HOT!
Across the country, an outraged public has begun the search for the law it thinks Missouri officials may have missed. Some even conclude that these officials failed to make any real effort.
While it's true that the legal code falls well short of adequately covering all aspects of Internet usage, it is also true that many laws have been updated to cover larger portions of it.
For example, the music industry has forced lawmakers to sharpen it's definitions of online music sharing. Laws like Jessica's law and Megan's law have created harsher sentences and public shaming of sexual predators.
The case of Megan Meier and her online stalker Lori Drew indeed crosses many different sections of the legal code. Harassment, child endangerment/welfare, exploitation to name just a few. So how could a case cross so many different paths, yet fail to elicit a charge in any one of these codes and statutes of law?
Why didn't a county or federal prosecutor pick the best match and at least file a charge? Every prosecutor knows that they will not win 100% of their cases. Many prosecutors gather the best possible evidence and get the matter in front of a Judge. The Vice points reminds readers that the St. Charles County Prosecutor's office claimed to not even be aware of the incident until the story broke in local newspapers.
Below is just one section of law in many that are beginning to surface as a possible direction prosecutors might have gone. It is only one small example in many that could have been considered, but has never been addressed.
These laws belong to the people of our country, not just lawyers. Take a look for yourself. Should laws such as this one been discounted so quickly? Why was a Judge or Jury never allowed to examine a law like this in relevance to Megan Meier's case? Share your own opinion.
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The Communications Decency Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Policy Act of 1996,
TITLE V--OBSCENITY AND VIOLENCE
Subtitle A--Obscene, Harassing, and Wrongful Utilization of Telecommunications Facilities
This title may be cited as the 'Communications Decency Act of 1996'.
Read the complete text of this law HERE
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§ 223. Obscene or harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications
(a) Prohibited acts generally
Danny ViceWhoever—
(1) in interstate or foreign communications—
(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or child pornography, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
(B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or child pornography, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication;
(C) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications;
(2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity,
shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
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Friday November 30, 2007 - Fighter of EOPC will be interviewed, via phone, on Fox's Mike & Juliet Show - sometime after 9am Eastern Standard Time.
This interview is in regard to the Megan Meier suicide and EOPC's support of the exposure of Lori Drew, the ADULT woman that drove a 13-year old, vulnerable girl to kill herself.
We hope to touch on the failures of the legal system on not just this case but all cases involving this sort of mental & emotional rape.
Please tune in and tell your friends. Click here for your local listings
After the show - please write Fox to express your opinion! CLICK HERE
Congratulations Fighter. I finished my interview with NPR today. It's great to see the mainstream media take interest in our community of bloggers.
Maybe just maybe we will change the laws and start holding online predators accountable for what they do to people's lives.
We had a victim come to us 3 years ago. She'd had an online affair for 18 months with a man she'd known for 27 years! He targetted her, she admitted she had made a bad choice but when she found out about him - she also stumbled on the fact that he was heavily involved with a local brothel. She turned everything over to the police, received a commendation, the brothel was closed and a very public trial with loads of news coverage ensued.
But did the police use ANY of the pages of hard proof she had that this man should have at least been charged with about 11 counts of soliciting? NO! Nothing happened to him. Not a thing. He got so angry that his old friend ended his party that told - he runs a HATE SITE against this poor woman - and no one does or says a thing.
Ed Hicks (aka the 'Dr. Phil' Bigamist) was our first expose. The police did next to nothing on the case and his traumatized 7th and 6th wives had to spend time & money they barely had to track down documents, etc on Hicks. It took them 3 years of hammering the police & local prosecutors to get Hicks charged and jailed for one year. Hicks is now out and yep, back online trolling for more victims.
Danny - can your NPR interview be heard online anywhere?? We'd love to link to it!
Hmmm, odd that the local prosecutor is only NOW checking the police reports. Makes you wonder how many other crimes slip through the cracks because there's no public outrage.
The internet angle is a red herring-- any adult that knowingly taunts and distresses a mentally ill child is guilty of child endangerment. If Missouri prosecutes that as a misdemeanor, Megan's death is involuntary manslaughter and if its prosecuted as a felony, its murder.
As for the Feds, again they're missing the forest for the trees. Come on guys, pretend its Martha Stewart, Title 18 of the US Code is full of land mines. If they can't pop Lori for False Statements (what Martha went to prison for); there's the Witness Tampering of the teenage neighbor, there's Wire Fraud (deceiving Megan) and since the Drew girl and 18 year old employee acted in concert with Lori, Conspiracy.
The beauty of the last charge is that every action of a conspirator is imputed to every other member. The US Attorney doesn't have to prove which of the three (or any other conspirator given account access) wrote any particular message. Every conspirator is on the hook for every co-conspirator action.
Finally, Curt Drew didn't report his knowledge of a federal crime to the proper authorities, Misprision (a felony punishable up to three years in prison). Granted he has no obligation to testify against his wife, but he has no spousal privilege with the employee/conspirator, so Uncle Sam could indict Mr. Drew too.
Oh almost forgot, there's also the matter of deleting the Myspace messages after Megan's suicide, that's Obstruction of Justice.
(§ 1519. Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy).
As I mentioned above, the US Attorney doesn't have to prove which of the conspirators is responsible-- they all are.
My bigger issue now is not so much that charges have not been filed, but that the case continues to be classified as a harassment case.
Megan Meier was stalked and lured into a relationship. The mind control techniques that Lori used parallels that of a majority of internet child predators who seek to lure children for one purpose or another.
Laws that are being established now are extremely weak.
Another recent case of internet harassment over in O'fallon resulted in a charge of littering, but even that charge was eventually dropped.
Our officials are not taking this case seriously, because it will not acknowledge the methodology used.
I just want to say:
I SO agree with you on this.
And SHAME SHAME SHAME on the local attorneys who didn't get involved.
It makes me real mad to think of the grief of Megan's schoolmates and how everyone just abandoned them to fend for themselves. The school board, local officials AND local attorneys were derelict in thier duties.
If the laws are written and clarified things wouldn't have to get this fraught.
I called the police here when someone got to my home via a freecycle site. I got treated as the criminal when they came. Now I have a "red flag" on my file in my local police department! I am disabled and don't wish to be stalked, I really don't. But the man gets nothing as there is no law against what HE did. Crazy world. Complaining tho - now THAT's a CRIME.
How this whole thing got escalated is no mystery to me.
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