Court charges woman over deadly web hoax

Los Angeles: A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a woman of fraudulently using a MySpace.com account to "cyber-bully" a Missouri teenager who later hanged herself because she believed she was being rejected by a 16-year-old boy she met on the social networking website.

Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Missouri, faces three counts of accessing computers without authorisation to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl and one count of conspiracy.

Fraud victim

The case set off a furore when it was revealed that 13-year-old Megan Meier was the victim of a hoax perpetrated by Drew, who was the mother of one of the girl's former friends.

Authorities in Missouri investigated Meier's October 2006 death but declined to file charges against Drew, saying they were unable to find a statute under which to pursue a criminal case.

Earlier this year, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles launched a grand jury investigation aimed at determining whether Drew or others defrauded Beverly Hills-based MySpace by providing false information to the site.

Call for justice

As word leaked that an indictment was pending Thursday, Megan's father, Ron Meier, said he welcomed any attempt to hold someone accountable.

"I don't know who is actually going to end up paying for what happened to our daughter. I just want some justice after all this time," Meier said.

"For the first time in as long as I can remember, I actually have hope."

Drew's attorney, H. Dean Steward, said he planned to wage a vigorous defence, suggesting that prosecutors were overstepping their jurisdiction.

"There are a lot of issues we are going to need to raise," Steward said.