Law Commons^™

The Federal Response To A Tragic Teen Suicide: The Stretching Of A Statute To Punish Cyber-Harassment, The Groundbreaking Trial, Implications For Everyone, And Suggestions For The Future., John M. Ivancie

John M Ivancie Jr.

This paper revolves around the novel use of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to prosecute a Missouri woman, who, with her high-school-aged daughter, and a teenage employee created a fake MySpace.com account to get information about, and harass the daughter’s teen-aged friend. This harassment eventually led to that young girls suicide. No local law was broken by the trio’s actions, and thus, there was nothing local law-enforcement authorities could do. Federal prosecutors in California did respond and charged the mother under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a Federal anti-hacking statute. The way prosecutors used the statute is …