Stalking An Old Flame On Facebook? How About Some Federal Charges!

Facebook is not only a site where you can connect with friends and family while taking in a game of FrontierVille, it’s also a complex network that spans the entire world. So what happens when someone stalks you on Facebook, while sending you disturbing messages? In the past the outcome was typically a slap on the wrist, possibly a misdemeanour charge, but that could soon change. The new outcome? Federal Interstate stalking charges if the person that’s stalking you lives in another state.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent star Kathryn Erbe is currently involved in a 2 year stalking case in which deranged fan Charles Nagel not only visited her shooting location in New York, but also harassed her daughter and brother through the popular Facebook service and MySpace. Prosecutors are now determined to have Nagel charged with interstate stalking, a charge that brings with it up to 5-years in prison and a felony count on the guilty person’s record.

While Nagel’s travel to New York city is at the center of the controversy, a guilty verdict with Federal charges attached could give enough precedence for further interstate charges to be filed against Facebook followers who have chosen to stalk their prey online across state lines. The question will become, where is the line drawn between stalking someone from another state in person versus over the internet. Enough news of suicides by harassment and fights caused by text messages have arisen lately that the social impact during the outcome of this case could stem beyond simple misdemeanors charges.

While the case is far from determined, it will be interesting to see how social media plays it’s part in the trial, a guilty verdict in a case dominated by social media mentions could help form social network policing policies for years to come.

What do you think, should Facebook, MySpace and other social networking harassment be tolerated more than traditional stalking or should these crazy online stalkers face harsher penalties as they use modern means to attack their obsessions?

original article here

Federal Charges for Scammer Nailed by Dateline

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A federal grand jury in Greenville, South Carolina indicted Kenneth Ojua (a/k/a Diplomat “Jeffrey Grant”) – along with “Barrister Adewale Davis” and 4 other alleged co-conspirators in an international internet fraud ring.

Ojua was arraigned in Greenville and federal Magistrate William Catoe ordered him held without bond pending additional hearings.

On May 2, 2010, Dateline told the story of a Connecticut woman who had been cheated out of her life savings by internet scammers. Dateline’s Chris Hansen launched a year-long investigation aimed at luring some of her scammers out of the shadows. Dateline’s investigation finally paid off when Hansen met face-to-face with Ojua in a Greenville hotel room.

During the meeting Ojua tried to collect $37,600 dollars to pay storage fees for a trunk supposedly held in an underground vault and containing the woman’s multi-million dollar inheritance. The meeting was documented by Dateline’s hidden cameras.

Ojua was arrested by Greenville city police shortly after the meeting — but denied any wrongdoing. The U.S. Secret Service then launched its own investigation.

Federal agents are still attempting to identify and locate the conspirators overseas.

read the whole article here

Man Arrested for Spam Threat

by Bruce Golding

Maybe he thought their slogan changed from the company you keep to the company you cheat.

A broke former New York Life employee was busted on charges he tried to extort $200,000 from the insurance firm by threatening to smear it with a spam attack of 6 million e-mails, the feds announced yesterday.

Anthony Digati, 52, allegedly vowed to use a "spam service" and his skills as a "huge social networker" to drag the company "through the muddiest waters imaginable."

The Chino, Calif., man also told his ex-employer that the price would go to $3 million if it failed to pay up by yesterday, according to a Manhattan federal court complaint.

Digati, who was declared bankrupt last year with more than $1.2 million in debts, allegedly targeted the company after becoming "dissatisfied" with the performance of his own universal life-insurance policy.

original article here

"Annoying" someone via the Internet is now a Federal crime?

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. In 2006, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."

Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bit called "Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephone harassment law to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy."

To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and the section's other sponsors slipped it into an unrelated, must-pass bill to fund the Department of Justice. The plan: to make it politically infeasible for politicians to oppose the measure.

The tactic worked. The bill cleared the House of Representatives by voice vote, and the Senate unanimously approved it Dec. 16, 2005.

There's an interesting side note. An earlier version that the House approved in September had radically different wording. It was reasonable by comparison, and criminalized only using an "interactive computer service" to cause someone "substantial emotional harm."

That kind of prohibition might make sense. But why should merely annoying someone be illegal?

There are perfectly legitimate reasons to set up a Web site or write something incendiary without telling everyone exactly who you are.

Think about it: A woman fired by a manager who demanded sexual favors wants to blog about it without divulging her full name. An aspiring pundit hopes to set up the next Suck.com. A frustrated citizen wants to send e-mail describing corruption in local government without worrying about reprisals.

In each of those three cases, someone's probably going to be annoyed. That's enough to make the action a crime. (The Justice Department won't file charges in every case, of course, but trusting prosecutorial discretion is hardly reassuring.)

Clinton Fein, a San Francisco resident who runs the Annoy.com site, says a feature permitting visitors to send obnoxious and profane postcards through e-mail could be imperiled.

"Who decides what's annoying? That's the ultimate question," Fein said. He added: "If you send an annoying message via the United States Post Office, do you have to reveal your identity?"

Fein once sued to overturn part of the Communications Decency Act that outlawed transmitting indecent material "with intent to annoy." But the courts ruled the law applied only to obscene material, so Annoy.com didn't have to worry.

"I'm certainly not going to close the site down," Fein said on Friday. "I would fight it on First Amendment grounds."

He's right. Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simple point, but the First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.

It even shields our right to do it anonymously. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defended this principle magnificently in a 1995 case involving an Ohio woman who was punished for distributing anonymous political pamphlets.

If President Bush truly believed in the principle of limited government (it is in his official bio), he'd have realized that the law he signed cannot be squared with the Constitution he'd sworn to uphold.

And then he'd repeat what President Clinton did a decade ago when he felt compelled to sign a massive telecommunications law. Clinton realized that the section of the law punishing abortion-related material on the Internet was unconstitutional, and he directed the Justice Department not to enforce it.

Bush had the chance to show his respect for what he calls Americans' personal freedoms. Now we'll see if the new president rises to the occasion.

It's illegal to annoy

A 2006 federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language.

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications... shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We felt this is going to be VERY hard if not impossible to enforce under Constitutional rights. And in the 2 years since it was signed - we were proved right.

Also the person who says they are being harassed - would have to legally disclose their relationship to the harasser during any discovery period and why the alleged harasser is doing it. (Most of our exposed cyberpaths? That's the LAST thing they want -- UNLESS they can twist history in their favor; which they can't - unless they are completely delusional)

Another good reason to always surf on a person's name or nickname before getting involved with them and saving ALL chats with them once it goes over the boundaries of simple conversation (i.e. 'love', cybersex or emotional affairs)

Cyberpaths would be out of luck! - Fighter

Technorati Tags: cyberharassment, online,free speech, abuse, federal crime, Justice Department, annoy, threaten

Man Posts Online Threats & Allegations - Gets Convicted

John E. Murphy, Acting United States Attorney announced that 32-year-old Steven Weste is in federal custody today after a jury in San Antonio found him guilty of making false statements to and concealing material facts from federal authorities and e-mailing threats to kill people including a person hired to be a U.S. Border Patrol agent, a Virginia police officer, and Weste’s former girlfriend.

Following the jury’s verdict handed down yesterday, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ordered that Weste, who had been out on a $50,000 unsecured bond prior to trial, be remanded to the custody of the United States Marshal. Judge Rodriguez scheduled sentencing for October 30, 2009.

Weste, a Judson High School teacher who was transferred to an administrative post subsequent to being indicted, faces up to five years in federal prison per each of the 15 counts of which he was convicted.

The jury found that between November 2006 and January 2007, Weste sent scores of e-mails which either contained threats to kill or contained false statements. Testimony during the trial revealed that among those e-mails, Weste, in December 2006, threatened to kill his former student and former girlfriend, who was at the time attending the College of William and Mary in Virginia, upon her return home during Christmas break. Weste followed up by sending e-mails to a campus Police Lieutenant threatening to kill him and “everyone close to” him if he continued investigating Weste’s initial e-mail threat to kill his former girlfriend.

Testimony also revealed that Weste e-mailed a threatening communication on December 21, 2006 to one of his former students who was attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which Weste threatened to kill the student and his entire family.

In addition to e-mailing the threats to kill, jurors also found that in November 2006, Weste, using aliases, sent various e-mails to federal authorities which contained false child molestation and sexual assault allegations with the intent to discredit an individual hired to be a U.S. Border Patrol agent in El Paso. The agent had previously dated the sister of Weste’s former girlfriend and Judson student.

This case was investigated by the College of William and Mary Police Department, Department of Homeland Security–Office of Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs (CBPIA), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation together with the Texas Department of Public Safety. The police departments from the Judson Independent School District, University of Texas at Austin and Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as the San Antonio Police Department also provided assistance in this investigation.

Former CBPIA Special Agent Joe Arredondo, who began the investigation more than two years ago, came out of retirement to provide invaluable assistance to the prosecution throughout the trial. Assistant United States Attorneys Jim Blankinship and Tom McHugh are prosecuting this case on behalf of the government.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

MATTHEW COX - BUSTED FRAUDSTER & CYBERPATH

Yet another reason to AVOID online dating and meeting ANYONE online for romance! This wanna-be writer lives out his books exploitive fantasies... (comments in purple are ours) - Fighter

MORE ON COX:
Dateline NBC


Matthew Cox wooed women and wrangled millions from his victims.
When it comes to pulling off the ultimate con, he wrote the book — literally
By Keith Morrison

It’s the ultimate taboo to give away the ending to any book. But we’ll tell you this: Matthew Cox's book ends with a fugitive con man, on a Florida cruise ship, carrying a bag with millions in cash, sailing away with the girl of his dreams one step ahead of the angry throng giving chase.

But is the book fiction or fact?

There are truths in this tall tale as bizarre as any novel.

Alison Arnold: He felt like the modern-day Robin Hood he would steal from the rich and give to the poor. That was his thing. And I believed in him.

The story begins in Tampa, Florida in the late 90’s when a hard-charging 20-something named Matthew Cox began making a name for himself as a mortgage broker.

Scott Cugno: I always used to say to him, “Matt you never come across as a salesman to me.”

Scott Cugno was a bank rep who thought the mortgage business a strange fit for Cox. For one thing, Cox was severely dyslexic, and he’d heard Matthew’s stories about the special schools he attended, where teachers told him he should work with his hands and that he wasn’t smart enough to do anything else. So Matthew Cox had studied art at the University of South Florida, working on sculptures and developing a passion for, even an obsession with painting.

Cugno: He always had pictures he would show me when I came in his office.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: Artistic guy?

Cugno: Very artistic.

But now Cox the artist was attacking the mortgage world as he attacked his canvas and his life: as if he had something to prove.

And remarkably, the man whose friends wondered if he could even read beyond a second grade level, had somehow written a book, called “The Associates,” a work of fiction with a main character whose charm, personality, and even physical description was the spitting image of the book’s author, Matthew Cox.

Quote from Cox's novel: Christian J. Locke was 29 years old, stood only five foot seven inches tall, with dark brown hair/sun-tanned skin..

Cugno: He did show it to me and straight from Matt’s mouth. It was just about a guy that was gonna basically go around the country committing mortgage fraud, and then sail away.

Morrison: What did you think when he told you about the book?

Cugno: Well, I kinda knew.

Knew, he says, because from the day he’d met Cox, the word was out in Tampa’s “everyone-knows-everybody” mortgage world that something, well, slippery was going on in Cox’s office.

Cugno: You just knew because other people in the business would talk how Matt’s office is. “If you need a W-2, he’ll make it always appear. If you need someone’s Social Security card, he’ll make it appear.”

Morrison: So he wasn’t just bending the rules he was breaking them?

Cugno: Absolutely… oh absolutely.

And just how badly Cox was breaking the rules became clear in the spring of 2001, when a warrant was issued for his arrest?

Cugno: I had come to his office and people had told me “Man, the cops were just here. Matt just literally ran out the back door, jumped over the fence... and…”

Morrison: You’re kidding! Jumped over the back fence..?

Cugno: Yeah I guess a couple of ‘em did because they were all kinda worried.

Morrison: It was clearly a rogue office?

Cugno: Oh absolutely.

Suddenly, that novel Matthew Cox had written didn’t sound so far-fetched. He was facing state and federal charges. What had he done?

For starters, he assumed a fake identity to get an $80,000 mortgage. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand theft, got three years probation and was ordered to stay out of the mortgage business. Which might have been the end of our little story. Except the convictions did not stop Matthew Cox.

Oh, he didn’t work as a mortgage broker, not exactly. But he was certainly back in the business. He called himself “a consultant.”

He just wouldn’t stop living on the edge, said his friends. He was a sky-diver, a daredevil who on the ground skirted the law and honed his schemes. He was able to fake good credit to buy literally dozens of Tampa properties, including an apartment building. Inside, Cox left his distinctive mark in great swatches of vibrant color, painting huge murals all over the walls. Matthew Cox was here it said.

And then secretly, leaving almost no mark at all, according to investigators, he used his building like a burglar’s tool. Again, using a false name, he filed fake documents to make it appear it was paid off.

From his novel: He was a mortgage broker, not a bank robber. He just had ‘a knack for finding loopholes…

It’s reported Cox took out mortgages on this building worth nearly a $1 million, five times what it was worth.

And then, Cox turned his charms on young women.

Arnold: He said "All you need is someone to believe in you."

Her name is Alison Arnold. She was 29 years old in 2003 and miserable. Her marriage was on the rocks, she had a young son to care for, she had big dreams but was drowning in a sea of debt. (sound familiar readers?)

Arnold: He said, “You could work for me. I’ll pay for you to get your mortgage license. I’ll pay for you to get divorced. I’ll give you money for an apartment. I’ll rent it for you. I’ll furnish it. You’ll be set. You can start a new life. The offer was on the table.”

Morrison: What did you do?

Arnold: I took him on his offer.

And just like that, Alison left her husband, and joined Cox’s office as a loan processor.

But Matthew Cox as a lover? That lasted about a week. The real relationship, it turned out, wasn’t about sex, or romance. There were lessons to be learned.

Arnold: He loved to go to the movies.

Morrison: What kind of movies did he like?

Arnold: Anything to do with criminal activity.

Arnold: “Catch Me If You Can,” he loved that movie. We went and saw this movie, “The Italian Job.”

Alison had seen how shady Cox’s strategies were and how successful. She was intrigued.

Arnold: He said that he wanted to help me in a way that would make me loyal to him. And he told me straight up.

Morrison: Was he upfront about that?

Arnold: Very, very upfront. The loyalty part came in when he needed favors from me to do the illegal mortgages.

And she convinced herself it wasn’t actually bad, not evil. They were more like Robin Hood, Cox told her—the big fat insurance companies would cover the losses, nobody would actually get hurt.

And so she was willingly sucked in.

Alison rented a home, forged a deed, and then just as Cox told her he’d done again and again, filed phony paperwork to get three real mortgage loans borrowing nearly $400,000 against a property she didn’t even own.

Then, she bought a house under a fake name and incredibly, the Social Security number of her own young son.

Morrison: You must have known that what you were doing was not just shady but illegal.

Arnold: I knew it was illegal but...

Morrison: But it still felt like nobody was getting hurt?

Arnold: It felt like nobody was getting hurt, yeah. And Matt did it and he got in trouble twice for exactly the same thing that I did, exactly. So I thought, okay there’s a risk. But the risk to me, was, “I’ll have a felony and a thousand dollar fine. Okay. But I’ll make $250,000.” I didn’t think it was a big deal.

There they were, she thought, Bonnie and Clyde, real estate division.

But soon, she says, he began to make her feel that she wasn’t quite good enough, or smart enough or attractive enough to play the role.

Arnold: He said, “You’re pretty in a trailer park kind of way.” He’s like, “We’re gonna buy you some boobs,” like that. He said “Every girl I date, I buy boobs for her. I said no way.”

But when Alison refused implants, she could no longer be that character in Matthew’s book.

From his novel: He even managed to buy her a set of silicone breast implants. Christian had to admit, it was one of the best investments he’d ever made.

And Alison says she was about to learn a very painful lesson. Her partner in crime was not burdened by sentimentality or affection. She would not be the only woman to fall for this charming thief. (people as objects: sounds sociopathic...)

By the summer of 2003, Matthew Cox had left a colorful mark in Tampa, Florida—from the murals that sprawled through his apartment building, to his manuscript for a novel about real estate fraud.

From Cox’s novel: If everyone was going to treat him like a criminal, then it was damn sure time he started acting like one.

Then there were his dozens of mortgage-maxxed homes and buildings, his Audi TT sportscar, and designer clothes.

And by Cox’s side was a woman who thought she was living the fairy tale dream: Alison Arnold. He felt like the modern-day Robin Hood. He would steal from the rich and give to the poor. That was his thing and I believed in him.

Of course, Alison Arnold wanted to believe—enough to succumb to his advances, leave her husband and break the law, as she says Cox had taught her. She filed false paperwork to make it appear a mortgage was paid off, then pulled out hundreds of thousands of dollars and leaving lenders holding the bag.

She wanted it. But—

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: Was he able to make your life successful?

Alison Arnold: No, he always just paid my mortgage. He just gave me enough to make a car payment

Morrison: It sounded like he was controlling your life at this point?

Arnold: I was totally dependent on him for everything.

She was living HIS fantasy, she says. Her life? Her son? It didn’t matter to him —

Arnold: He liked feeling like he was living in a movie. He wanted me to be the “Bonnie and Clyde” with him. He’s like, why don’t you just leave your son? And I said, “No I can never leave my son.”

Surely he would understand that. She was, of course, wrong.
From his book: It was apparent that if you were not with Christian, you were against him.

And here was the consequence: Alison had been replaced.

Rebecca Hauck: He answered my ad. He was very charming. He was funny.

Matthew Cox found Rebecca Hauck on Match.com. There, right away, she confessed she was new in town, a single mother with a son named Bryce, that she was on the run from an addiction to video poker.

She was insecure. She was vulnerable. She was perfect.

He took her to dinner where they hit it off.

Morrison: So what did Matthew tell you that he did?

Hauck: He told me he owned his own company, he had about 20 people that worked for him that thought he was a god and they all wanted to be his friend.

Rebecca was dazzled. When he asked her out again, she said, of course. He took her to a movie: “Matchstick Men.”

Hauck: He couldn’t wait for us to get out of the movie because he said, that’s small potatoes. And I’m like, what are you talking about? And then he proceeded to tell me he was on probation for mortgage fraud…

Morrison: When he told you that, what did you think?

Hauck: Well, I thought he was on probation. I thought, "Okay y’know he said it happened two years ago."

Morrison: But he’s talking about how he breaks the law!

Hauck: I know, I know. I thought, “Who am I to judge?” You know, everybody has a past.

There was something about him that irresistible. And he seemed to see just what he wanted in her.

Hauck: He hit me hard and fast as far as like wining and dining me. (we're fairly sure, Cox is a sociopath.)

Morrison: Do you think you seemed needy?

Hauck: As he got to know me more, yes. He told my son that he was gonna put him in private school. He was building condos and he was gonna let he and I live in a condo and let my son live in one below it by himself… and…

Morrison: You had been poor? And now you were going to be rich!

Hauck: I know. I had diamonds. I had a Rolex. He’d just give me cash for whatever I wanted -- my prince charming.

Rebecca Hauck was mesmerized by these amazing stories: how to beat the system, get rich, and not hurt a living soul.

Hauck: He told me that his friend and him would create people. He’d make up a name, make up a fake Social Security number and so they’d get all these credit cards in fake names buy all this stuff and never pay it.

Morrison: You must have realized it was not legal.

Hauck: Oh yeah, I did.Morrison: Was that not a problem?

Hauck: It was but by the time he started approaching me with this, I was so consumed with him.

Rebecca Hauck says she believed every word and salivated about wealth like she’d never experienced before. Neither she, nor Matthew Cox, apparently, was aware that around Tampa a buzz was growing about federal investigations. The law was on Cox’s trail once again.

And then one day, a tip off.

Hauck: Someone who wrote for the paper sent his partner an article saying, “we’re on to you…”

Morrison: This was gonna be in the paper?

Hauck: Yeah. And he knew he was already on probation.

But here’s the twist that’s truly bizarre: Cox the aspiring novelist had written passages years earlier that he now seemed to be living almost word for word in real life.
Novel excerpt: Panic set in for the first time. How in the hell had the FBI gotten involved? Someone must’ve tipped them off. But who?Hauck: He wouldn’t go back to his house because he was afraid they’d pick him up there if he was gonna get picked up again, he was going to prison..

Matthew Cox was about to ask that same question again, the one he’d asked Alison Arnold.

Hauck: He’s like, “Will you come with me?”

And this time the answer would be yes.

In December 2003, Matthew Cox disappeared from his hometown of Tampa. Former business acquaintances, like Scott Cugno, were perplexed.

Scott Cugno, former business partner: He had 60 properties at that time, give or take, that he owned.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: That’s a lot to abandon.

Cugno: Yes.

But his former partner-in-crime Alison Arnold knew exactly what had happened.

Alison Arnold: When I found out that he went on the run, I wanted to die inside because I knew everything was gonna be exposed.

Or would it? After all, Cox’s new confederate, Rebecca Hauck was willing to do whatever Alison was not. And especially, to leave her son, 13-year-old Bryce and go on the run.

Rebecca Hauck: Bryce was actually going to visit my mom for Christmas, so I’d already gotten him a ticket to go.

Morrison: So when you took him to the airport…

Hauck: Oh it was horrible. I was just crying. I wouldn’t let him go. He’s like, “I’ll be back in two weeks.” What’s going on you know? Because I was so upset.

Morrison: You knew he was going, maybe forever? And you were prepared to do that?

Hauck: Well I was under the impression that I would get to see him.

Days after they left Tampa, a hard-hitting expose, outlining some of Cox’s alleged swindles, appeared in the St. Petersburg Times, headlined ‘Dubious Deals.’

All those dozens of properties, and so much more about Matthew Cox were not all that they seemed.

Law enforcement went into gear. Warrants were issued. But a manhunt? No.

And nobody in Tampa had the slightest idea that Matthew Cox and Rebecca Hauck were in Atlanta. And soon, they were setting up shop in another apartment building.

Hauck: We had to get new identities so we just went to dinner one night, made up a name.

She became Grace Hudson. And Cox? Well, he drove across the border to Alabama, walked into this DMV, and the dyslexic artist who’d developed an amazing ability to copy signatures doctored a few documents and transformed himself into, shall we say, an old friend…

Cugno: I couldn’t believe that this was happening!

Cox, it turns out, had volunteered to handle Scott Cugno’s mortgage a couple years earlier. And now to his horror Cugno discovered his former friend had used all that precious and secret personal information for his own dirty work.

Cugno: He took my identity and bought houses—a car, and some credit cards…

Morrison: How much did he steal using your name?

Cugno: I think it’s like $50,000. This was his way of playing a game.

And the game was on. Rebecca was getting a crash-course in fraud. Her first assignment? That book Cox had written, “The Associates.”

From Cox's novel: Anyone can steal money and run but disappearing forever is extremely difficult. They’d need driver’s licenses and credit cards.

Morrison: Did you know that he had written a book?

Hauck: No. And when I read it, I was just floored. I couldn’t believe it. As we got on the run together, I saw how he did things. And it all referenced back to how the book was.

And here is precisely what the “hero” does in Matthew’s book: First, with his female accomplice, he rents a home, just like this one they did rent in an Atlanta suburb. Next, the fictional character opened accounts at several banks in the area to launder the cash that was to come. Cox did just that. Then, just as his character had, Cox forged a document and filed it at the courthouse, claiming the mortgage on the home was paid off.

Hauck: Then he’d start hitting high-end lenders and telling them he owned the property free and clear.

Lenders like John Holman had no idea he was playing the part of the fictional dupe.

John Holman: I loaned this fellow over $100,000 on a home that it turns out he didn’t own.

A private investor named Sam Dobrow also made a loan.

Morrison: You’ve lost something like $75,000- 80,000?

Sam Dobrow: Right. And my partner’s who in this with me has another $50,000.

With house after house, records would reveal, the plan he’d dreamed up in a story, worked to perfection in real life.

They hit Tallahassee, where Rebecca got more involved. Now it was she who claimed to own a house. She went to the closing, under another stolen identity.

Morrison: Was there some point at which he said, “Okay, you’re in it as deep as I am”?

Hauck: Mm-hmm. On our drive home he’s like, “well, you’re in it. You’ve done it.”

Morrison: So now you’re Bonnie of Bonnie and Clyde?

Hauck: Yeah, I guess.

They felt untouchable, Even slipping out of the country for a trip to Jamaica, where pictures of them were taken. They seemed like a couple of carefree Americans on holiday.

But as she got in deeper, things began to change. Even before Jamaica, the romance had cooled. Cox, who at 5’6 could never be mistaken for Brad Pitt or George Clooney, began belittling Rebecca. (here comes the degrade & devalue, aka D&D)

Hauck: He would tell me, you’d be perfect if you just had some plastic surgery done -breast implants.

Morrison: But you didn’t want breast implants right?

Hauck: No, not really.

But implants she got a $15,000 job at a plastic surgery center outside Atlanta.

Morrison: Then why’d you do it?

Hauck: Because I wanted him to want me. Because he kept telling me he wasn’t physically attracted to me. Everything I tried to do was trying to make him want to be with me.

Morrison: But?

Hauck: No still no. I just was flabbergasted. What do I have to do? I gave up my family, my life, my kid you know? I had plastic surgery. What do I have to do to show you how much you mean to me, when you’re telling me I’m never gonna be good enough for you?

Morrison: Why didn’t you walk away?

Hauck: I was afraid.

But, if she was in some ways trapped in this cage, it was certainly a gilded one...

Morrison: So you lived in a great apartment?

Hauck: MM-hmm. I drove a G-35 Infiniti.Morrison: Great clothes, make up, hair? nails done?

Hauck: Yes, exactly. I had everything.

But slowly, Rebecca Hauck was coming to realize that despite all the trappings—life in the shadows, always looking over her shoulder, was not so glamorous after all. And things were heating up: Atlanta-area lenders who’d been stiffed began alerting authorities about Cox’s schemes.

Gale McKenzie, assistant U.S. attorney, Atlanta: The number of victims, the number of stolen identities used, the number of prior mortgages that are erased—all of that makes this case very unique.

Morrison: Now this guy was good!McKenzie: Very good! Once we were within three weeks of capturing him… we were that close.

The Feds seized bank accounts, and they say they grabbed several hundred thousand dollars of Cox’s ill-gotten gains.

Morrison: Before he had a chance to get at it?

McKenzie: Before he had a chance to launder it yes.

Morrison: So he would’ve known you were pretty close at that point?

McKenzie: He knew we were very close at that point.

News stories began to appear, describing a slash-and-burn mortgage march through Atlanta by the fugitives.

Hauck: My picture was everywhere on the news. And I got really scared then. I’m like, “No no no no no—I can’t do this anymore.” And I told him that night, I’m like, “I gotta go.” And I had a panic attack and I freaked out. And he grabbed me by the throat, threw me on the ground, and started choking me saying “You’re not gonna get me caught! Be quiet! You’re not gonna get me caught!” And that was the first time it scared me.

And yet, once again, Matthew Cox gave his pursuers the slip. He and Rebecca headed north to Columbia, South Carolina, where with a new, stolen identity - Gary Sullivan —
he bought another house.

Dr. Bruce Brown: In our case he closed on six loans in the span of few days on our property, and another house closed on five to six loans within the span of a week.

Dr. Bruce Brown and his wife were leaving the Army, selling their first home when they met Cox.

Morrison: So we’re talking about a dozen closings in a week?

Brown: All with separate attorneys, separate real estate agents—

Morrison: And different identities in many of ‘em?

Brown: Different identities.

Novel: The prankster in Christian couldn’t help but add a flair to the forgeries.

So brazen was Cox that on one mortgage he even was said to have signed the name ‘C. Montgomery Burns,’ — a character from the TV show, “The Simpsons.”

Was it arrogance, hubris? Maybe it was simple karma, then... that the luck which greased this long string of scams was about to run out.. (how about sociopathy??)

Hauck: He called me and said, you may have to be on your own. I’ve just been picked up.

By the spring of 2005, Rebecca Hauck and the mortgage fraud mastermind Matthew Cox hadbeen on the run for 18 months, weaving their way north from Tampa.

They were suspected of juggling dozens of identities, including those stolen from former acquaintances.

Scott Cugno: I believe he’s a genius.

Forging documents, taking money out of homes, they left homeowners and lenders fighting over the chaos.

Sam Dobrow: It’s a chess game, and every time he walks out of closing it’s checkmate…

And remember, Cox had also left behind the woman who’d become his first accomplice. And while Cox and his new partner ran, Alison Arnold was increasingly haunted by the crimes she helped commit—just like a character in that novel Cox has written years before.

Excerpt from the novel: This poor girl was trapped in a spot Houdini couldn’t have gotten out of. It was very possible she may spend the next 15 to 20 years in federal prison.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. And so she picked up the phone, and called the FBI, before the bureau came to her.

Alison Arnold: They would have knocked on my door. And I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to get it over with. I knew that what goes up must come down.

But Matthew Cox had no such fear. The step-by-step schemes that investigators said he’d laid out years earlier in a novel of all things, had worked out perfectly. His take? Authorities estimated some $5 million.

Morrison: Does he think other people are stupid?

Rebecca Hauck: Yeah, he thinks he’s smarter than everybody. Like, he would make comments, ‘we’re not commoners’. (narcissists & sociopaths all think they are "special" and "above it all" even the law)

Morrison: “We’re not commoners”? Hauck: He would say stuff like that. I truly believe he believes it, that he’s better than people.

And then one day, in the spring of 2005, Rebecca was briefly alone and her phone rang.

Hauck: He called me and said, “You may have to be on your own. I’ve just been picked up.” I was distraught, I could not even fathom what would happen to me if he wasn’t there.

Morrison: How would you live?

Hauck: Exactly!

Finally, it had happened. A sharp-eyed court clerk in Columbia, South Carolina had noticed Cox had put several mortgages on two houses, in a matter of days. A fraud alert was issued on one of his money-laundering bank accounts. And so, there were photos of Cox inside the very bank, where his luck was about to run out. He was taken into custody just outside.

Hauck: He actually got taken to the police department. And they had him in custody.

They brought him to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department in Columbia, South Carolina. It was the end of one audacious crime spree.

Or...was it?

The man deputies were questioning told them his name was Gary Lee Sullivan. Which was, in fact, one of his 30 or so fake IDs. And since there was no warrant for any Gary Lee Sullivan, they let him go. Matthew Cox simply walked away.

Morrison: How frustrating was that for you?

Gale McKenzie, assistant U.S. attorney: Extremely frustrating.

Morrison: So close!

McKenzie: So very close.

Cox had slipped away, and he soon re-joined Rebecca.

But she knew something was changing. Her face, she knew, had shown up on wanted posters.

And she’d recently caught Cox trolling the very spot where he’d found her: Match.com.

That could mean only one thing: he was looking for a new accomplice.

She was finished.

Hauck: As we’re driving, he’s like, “We need to do this again.” I’m like, “No, I am not gonna do this again.” I go, “I can’t do this. Enough’s enough. It’s over.” And I think that’s when it clicked with him that i wasn’t gonna do it any more. We got into an argument. I went and got in the bath, and he left. Left everything.

Morrison: You came out of the bathroom and he was gone…Hauck: He left me enough probably to live for about six, seven months.

Once, he’d swept her off her feet—showered her with clothes, and cash and diamonds. And, she says, he made her his partner in crime. And now he was, simply, gone.

Morrison: Would you have stayed with him right through to the end?

Hauck: I had every intention when I left with him, yeah. To the end.

Morrison: “Stick it out no matter what.” Go down in a blaze of glory?

Hauck: Yeah.

Morrison: Really be Bonnie and Clyde. That was a romantic image in a way, wasn’t it?

Hauck: I wanted to be loved unconditionally. I wanted… yes, I think so. (also BRAINWASHED by a predator. Check what Hedda Nussbaum said about Joel Steinberg. Trauma bonded)

Rebecca found herself alone, now in Houston, where they had come to find new victims.

Instead, Rebecca settled into a quiet life on the lam. She made new friends, changed her hair color, and once again, picked a new name.

Morrison: What do they know you as?

Hauck: Rebecca Sue Hickey.

And as Rebecca Sue Hickey, in Houston, she says she went straight. She worked as a bartender and attended cosmetology school.

But beyond that, she says, she spent nearly every waking moment missing the son she’d left at the Tampa airport. Bryce was 15 now. She hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in two years.

Morrison: Were you holding back those tears all those months you were away from him?

Hauck: I cried a lot about him. I’d look at his pictures. He had a MySpace page and I typed in his name and his thing came up. And I was floored.

Morrison: How often did you check MySpace?

Hauck: Probably four or five times a day.

For nearly a year, she says, she lived and worked and pined for her son… and waited.

Then one day, in March 2006, the Secret Service came walking into that cosmetology school.

What would happen now that Rebecca Hauck a.k.a. Rebecca Sue Hickey, a.k.a. Grace Hudson was finally caught?

Hauck: When they came and picked me up, i just felt like, I was scared but I felt this big relief.

By March 2006, Rebecca Hauck had been on her own in Houston for nearly a year since the day fraud artist Matthew Cox drove out of her life.

Rebecca Sue Hickey, as she was known to her friends, had been living in this apartment, going to cosmetology school, and working as a bartender, when one day, the Secret Service came calling.

Rebecca Hauck: I just felt like, I was scared but I felt this big relief, like “You know what? Let’s start it. This is the beginning of the end. Let me just get this done.”

Two-and-a-half years after Rebecca Hauck and Matthew Cox began papering the South with phony mortgages, stealing from property owners, and banks, and title companies from Florida to Georgia and South Carolina—one half of this Bonnie and Clyde duo—Bonnie at least was in custody.

And once she was caught, Rebecca admitted everything. She pleaded guilty to fraud, identity theft, money laundering and conspiracy. She was sentenced to almost six years in federal prison. And was ordered to pay back more than $One million.

She sat down with us for an interview at the federal detention center in Atlanta.

Hauck: I wanna believe in love but you gotta love yourself. You can’t let somebody else manipulate you the way that…

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: You just turned over your life to him.

Hauck: Oh completely, my body, my life my spirit—everything to him.

Morrison: Are you a victim?

Hauck: I feel I am. But I also know that I’m responsible for what I did do.

Morrison: ‘Cause you know as soon as you say in your orange jumpsuit, I’m a victim, you can just hear all across the country, millions of people saying...

Hauck: Whatever. Yeah, I know. Sure I’m an adult, I made a bad decision that I know and I have to... I’ve hurt people too because of it.

Morrison: Do you know how many lives you and he have impoverished? How many financial lives you’ve thrown into turmoil? And how many people have been screwed up for years?

Hauck: Yes.

Morrison: How many people’s credit has been destroyed? How many insurance companies had to pay out? What kind of chaos you’ve created? Do you know that?

Hauck: Yeah. I think about it a lot.

Morrison: But did you at the time?

Hauck: No because he would make me believe that’s why the title companies are there/is to pay the people off. They’re not gonna be in trouble—a penny from every person he would say, and I believed him.

Of course, Rebecca Hauk is not the only woman who fell for Matthew Cox.

Alison Arnold: I trusted him with my life basically.

There was, remember, Alison Arnold, who seemed to realize a little sooner than Rebecca just how much trouble she had helped cause. She chose to turn herself in to the FBI and offer a full confession, pleading guilty to numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft.

The result?

She was ordered to pay $300,000 in restitution to her victims and she was sentenced to two years behind bars.

Morrison: Has it been worth it? This price you paid?

Arnold: Yes its worth it, because before turning myself in I was living more in prison than I do today. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be Matt living under a completely different alias and damaging more people. Hurting more people. Stealing from middle class America.

On November 15th, 2006 Rebecca Hauck was sentenced to nearly six years in prison.

Now, one thing remained: To catch her accomplice in fraud, the accused con man behind it all— Matthew Cox.

Those who’d lost money on his alleged scams hoped that somehow, he’d still get what was coming to him—

Holman: This is a very hard crime to stop. That’s the reason we need to get this guy off the street.Brown: He just, at the closing table was nice and kind as could be, but the whole time, he was taking us to the cleaners.Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: How angry are you all three?Dobrow: I’m pretty angry. I’m not a violent person but I would sure like to see this guy locked away for a very long time.Morrison: What drives him? Is it the money..is it..?U.S. Attorney Gale McKenzie: It’s the money and the game.

U.S. Attorney Gale McKenzie’s manhunt had now gone nationwide.

Law enforcement was alerted to his many aliases, and the habits that could give him away: His love for vanilla lattes at Starbucks, movies about criminals, the habit of painting huge murals in a very specific style, and the method of using young single mothers as accomplices.

Morrison: More than likely then, some other young woman is setting herself up for a stay in a federal prison somewhere?

McKenzie: That is a real possibility.

And then, out of the blue, there was news.

And it happened on the very week Rebecca Hauck was sentenced in Atlanta.

There was a tip from Nashville, Tennessee, just 200 miles away: It was a babysitter who said something about a man she worked for didn’t seem right.

He called himself Joseph Carter from Florida, she said. He lived with this single mother. She’d done some research on the Web, and bingo—there he was, a wanted man.

Secret Service Agents scrambled to a home in Nashville but it was empty. Matthew Cox was gone.

Where was Matthew Cox? Had somebody tipped him off? Well in fact the truth was too strange to make up. Just days before, Cox had learned what it felt like to become the victim of a crime. Armed robbers had burst into his house, and stolen watches, cash, a car. An Infiniti, of course. And Cox became so worried that somebody was after him that he scooped up his new girlfriend, and her son and moved into a hotel.

Amanda Gardner: He said he would take care of me, he said he would take care of my son, he’d do his best to make sure that we were happy…

Her name is Amanda Gardner. She said she and Cox or “Carter” as she knew him, had set up a home remodeling business, the “Nashville Restoration Project.”

Gardner: I was completely and totally dumbstruck in love…

Amanda had settled down with a man who took her to Greece on vacation, loved crime movies, and vanilla lattes from Starbucks. And sure enough, he asked her to have breast enhancement surgery.

And then, one day, Cox and Amanda returned home from that hotel where they were hiding.

On November 16th, just like that, Matthew Cox was caught. He was taken down by Secret Service agents who’d been searching for him for two long years.

And his new girlfriend denied any wrongdoing. She claimed she was a victim too—sounding a lot like the last two.

Gardner: I learned that he was not the caring, giving person that I thought he was. I learned that he was unscrupulous, he damaged my business, and he sabotaged a year worth of my work because he got greedy.

And so we now find ourselves back at the beginning of our story—or more accurately, at the ending of Cox’s novel.

Cox’s novel: “I am not a criminal,” Christian continued to tell himself. He had not meant for anyone to get hurt.

Cox’s ending, it turns out, was indeed a fairytale. People had been hurt. Authorities do consider him a criminal.

Novel: He was free and about to start a new adventure. A new life in a new country…

There’ll be no sailing away on an ocean-bound cruise ship, no millions in cash, no girl by his side.

Instead, Matthew Cox faces charges which, if he’s convicted, could put him in federal prison for decades.

McKenzie: The book is fiction, and the real life ending is yet to be written.

His lawyers say Matthew Cox is expected to plead guilty to a laundry list of charges as part of a plea bargain deal with the government. He may be sentenced in the next two months.

SOURCE

Hat Tip to our Support Group Member 'Gypsy' for this story

Jeffrey Grob: 3 Years in Federal Prison for Cyberstalking

A Missouri man was sentenced Friday to three years and one month in federal prison for cyberstalking.

Jeffrey Grob, 28, pleaded guilty in March to sending threatening e-mails to his former girlfriend. Prosecutors say Grob sent the e-mails from October through December 2007.

The e-mails included death threats, and some included pictures of dead women. An Oct. 15, 2007, e-mail said: "I hope you die!!" One on Nov. 24 read: "I'm going to slit your throat. If you ever come back to Montana again I am going to slit your throat." Another e-mail included a picture of a dismembered woman and said: "This will be you."

ARTICLE

Man Found Guilty of Cyberstalking - Jailed

A 28-year-old Missoula, Montana (US) man has pleaded guilty to cyberstalking for sending threatening e-mails to his former girlfriend.

Jeffrey D. Grob pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Missoula on Thursday. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on June 19. Grob remains jailed.

Prosecutors say Grob sent the threatening e-mails to his former girlfriend from October through December 2007. The e-mails included death threats and some included pictures of dead women.

An Oct. 15, 2007 e-mail said: "I hope you die!!" One on Nov. 24 read: "I'm going to slit your throat. If you ever come back to Montana again I am going to slit your throat." Another e-mail included a picture of a dismembered woman and said: "This will be you."

The woman now lives in Seattle.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Lori Drew (MySpace Suicide Perpetrator) Tries To Get Case Dismissed... AGAIN

A federal judge has tentatively rejected two motions to dismiss charges against a woman in a MySpace hoax that allegedly led to a 13-year-old girl's suicide.

During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said he intends to take more time to consider a third motion to dismiss the case against Lori Drew of O'Fallon, Mo. She is accused of helping create a false-identity account on the social networking site and harassing her young neighbor with cruel messages.

The girl subsequently hanged herself in 2006.

Drew has pleaded not guilty after being indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles.

A defense attorney previously argued that prosecutors are bending a cyber crime statute to prosecute his client on charges of conspiracy and accessing computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.

Wu set an Oct. 7 trial date.

SOURCE

UPDATES ON THE MEGAN MEIER/ MYSPACE SUICIDE CASE

As of May 2008: CLICK HERE FOR LORI DREW'S INDICTMENT ANNOUNCEMENT

EOPC reiterates that we and "Fighter" (the pseudonym used by all the people who run this site) has NEVER at any time encouraged anyone to harm to the Drew family or any other sort of vigilante justice.

We do ask, as Tina Meier (Megan's mother) has asked - to continue to write to legal authorities and ask for justice in the case. A case in which NOTHING was done for over a year!

2 Articles from the Meier Family Local Paper:
POKIN AROUND: Who is 'Kristen'? And who, really, is 'Lori Drew'? The investigation begins.

By Steve Pokin

"I'm Lori Drew" is the introduction to a Dec. 3 posting on the inflammatory blog "Megan Had It Coming."

The blog's creation Nov. 18 was a painful and sad moment in a story with enough pain and sorrow for a lifetime.

Megan Meier, a 13-year-old who lived in Dardenne Prairie, took her life in October 2006 not knowing that Josh Evans, the 16-year-old boy who was mean to her on MySpace, was not real. Instead, he was created as part of a hoax played out by neighbors down the street and an 18-year-old girl.

And now the St. Charles County Sheriff's Department, with its highly regarded computer forensics department, will try to find out who stooped so low.

"The matter is under investigation," Lt. Craig McGuire said. "Where that is going to lead us, we don't know."

Will it lead to Lori Drew? The real Lori Drew? The one in Dardenne Prairie?

Absolutely not, says James L. Briscoe, Drew's attorney.

"Someone claims to be her," Briscoe says. "It's not her. She has not done anything anywhere. So that makes it pretty simple."

Briscoe on Friday released a statement that, in part, said: "Any internet message that purports to be a member of the Drew family is being managed by an impostor and undoubtedly is being done for the purpose of further damaging the Drews' reputation."

Then who is it?

Some insider? Someone close to the story? Someone in the Waterford Crystal neighborhood?

Or will investigators discover this dismaying chapter was penned by someone a thousand miles away who'd read about the case and had no personal connection to it?

Will it be someone who, for whatever reason - maybe there wasn't anything good on TV that night - sat down at a keyboard to see how much anger, hate and sadness could be set in motion?

The debate in the blogosphere is whether this was really Lori Drew. Some argue it must be. There was so much detail, they say.

I read the posting and, for many reasons, I say it's not.

The "Lori Drew" post ends this way:

"The final word from authorities has come down that there will be no charges, so I don't have to remain silent. There's no point in hiding anymore. The internet has made it clear that mob revenge must prevail, even if there's no justice in it. So be it.

"Here I am internet. Come get me."

Can you imagine anyone in Lori Drew's position saying that?

I can't.

But if it's not Lori Drew, asks Randy Bierce, who in August created the blog "Death By 1000 Papercuts," why hasn't the real Lori Drew called Google and demanded that "Megan Had It Coming" be taken down?

"Lori Drew could have this blog shut down at the touch of the button," says Bierce, who blogs as Mondoreb and, at times, as Randy Richochet, in an office near Pittsburgh.

His blog has covered extensively the Megan Meier story, as well as the controversy surrounding "Megan Had It Coming."

Bierce says he and co-workers are split on whether the person posting as "Lori Drew" is really Lori Drew.

"The question is, 'Why would anybody in their right mind do that?'" he said. "But the reaction to the whole story is why would anybody do what she did in the first place?"

"Megan Had It Coming" falls within Blogger.com, which is owned by Google. A spokesman for Google on Friday responded to my questions via e-mail.

According to Google's Terms of Service, although negative and distasteful content is allowed, it is a violation to impersonate someone by using their real name. (Impersonating someone by using a nickname, handle or screen name is allowed.)

"When we are notified of the existence of content that may violate our Terms of Service, we act quickly to review it and determine whether it actually violates our policies," according to the Google spokesman. "If we determine that it does, we remove it immediately. We are currently reviewing an impersonation claim related to this blog."

The "I'm Lori Drew" poster also claimed to be the same person who started the blog. The creator, in that first post, wrote in the persona of a teenage girl who called herself Kristen, acknowledging that Kristen was not her real name.

Kristen claimed she and Megan were "sort of friends," and she called Megan a "drama queen" just as likely to have killed herself for not getting enough to eat at dinner.

Predictably, others responded with shock and anger and accused "Kristen" of being the real Lori Drew.

It makes me wonder: Who writes this stuff? For what purpose? Just to do evil?

Bierce explained that "trolls" are people who have no connection to a story but post comments simply to pour gasoline on a burning controversy.

Bierce said his analysis of postings from "Kristen" and "Lori Drew" indicates that Kristen, after making that first entry, did not post for several days. That behavior is unlike a typical "troll," he said.

On the other hand, "Lori Drew" posted and responded for several hours until, apparently, he or she quit following an avalanche of response. This would more closely fit the "troll" pattern.

Bierce said he expects law enforcement to eventually ascertain who really posted as "Kristen" and who really posted as "Lori Drew."

Ron and Tina Meier, who are divorcing in large part because of Megan's death, support the investigation by the sheriff's department.

Ron said the blog puts his daughter in an untrue, negative light.

"I am just glad that they are looking into this stuff and treating it more seriously," he said. "I don't know if it's Lori Drew who did it. I believe not."

Tina Meier sees irony in that someone posing as Lori Drew could possibly be charged under a new Dardenne Prairie law created in response to Megan's death and the MySpace hoax behind it.

Tina wants the sheriff's department to pursue not only this case, but also all local cases where there's a complaint of cyberspace harassment, bullying or impersonation.

The real Lori Drew has not complained to law enforcement.

Jack Banas, the St. Charles County prosecuting attorney, said he asked the sheriff's department to investigate the blog after being questioned by a TV reporter.

"I have not talked to Mrs. Drew about this at all," Banas said.

He would not comment on what the possible violation might be.

"I'm not going to speculate on what crime it might be or what it might not be because I don't know until it is investigated," Banas said.

SOURCE

MORE ON THE MEGAN HAD IT COMING BLOG - Click Here

WHO'S AT FAULT? THE BLOGGERS OF COURSE! click here

DOES LORI DREW SPEAK WITH FORKED TONGUE? click here

30 QUOTES FROM THE WEB ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE - click here

MORE PRESS ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE - click here

POKIN AROUND: No charges to be filed over Meier suicide

No charges will be filed in connection with the October 2006 suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, of Dardenne Prairie, who was the victim of a MySpace hoax involving a boy who never existed.

Jack Banas, St. Charles County prosecuting attorney, said at a Monday press conference that he reviewed state laws regarding harassment, stalking and child endangerment and concluded that the intent of those who created the fake MySpace account did not meet the criminal threshold.

In fact, Banas said, Lori J. Drew, 48, the woman down the street who was involved in creating the fake account for "Josh Evans," was not home the day several mean messages were sent to Megan through the Josh account, including one that stated, "The world would be a better place without you."

Ron Meier, Megan's father, said he believes that is the final message Megan saw before she went upstairs to her room and hanged herself.

Banas said Lori Drew saw the ambulance at the Meiers' house when she arrived home and quickly learned from her daughter and a temporary employee about the messages that had been sent to Megan from Josh.

Banas' Monday announcement was not news to Megan's parents, Ron and Tina Meier. Banas had contacted Tina Meier on Friday.

"I am very disappointed, very let down," Ron Meier said Monday.

Banas said communication between Josh and Megan was benign until an Oct. 15, 2006, message that was sent from a different girl on the block who had been given the password to the Josh account.

The message said: "I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends."

Banas said most of the messages sent from Josh over six weeks were written by Ashley Grills, then 18, of O'Fallon, a temporary employee of Lori Drew's business, Drew Advantage. Grills often worked from the Drews' home.

Banas said it was Grills who typed what is believed to be the final message and it was Grills who was at the computer in the Drews' home typing messages for hours as Josh before Megan killed herself. Banas said the Drews' daughter, then 13, was with Grills at the time.

Banas said he was unable to interview Grills, now 19, because she has been under psychiatric care and was hospitalized as a result of her involvement in Megan's death. He said he saw no need to interview her at a later date.

Banas said he knows Grills' role because she was interviewed in an FBI investigation into Megan's death. The U.S. Attorney's Office for Eastern Missouri also did not file charges.

Prior to the FBI interview, attorney Scott Rosenblum, who was working for Ron and Tina Meier, interviewed Grills in November 2006.

In that interview, Grills stated that when the final messages were sent to Megan, Lori Drew was in the kitchen and fully aware of what was going on.

However, Banas said Monday that Grills did not tell the truth in that interview but did when interviewed by the FBI, when she stated that Lori Drew was not home.

"The girls involved in this will never forget this," Banas said. "Nor should they."

Banas said that Curt Drew, Lori Drew's husband, had known about the fake MySpace account and told his wife and daughter it was a bad idea. Nevertheless, the account was not closed.

Grills and Lori Drew dispute whose idea it was to create the fake MySpace account, Banas said.

Grills says it was Lori Drew's idea, and Lori Drew says that her daughter and Grills came to her with the idea, Banas said.

The Meiers and news media have focused on a Nov. 25, 2006, St. Charles County Sheriff's Department report that states: "Drew stated in the months leading up (to) Meier's daughter's suicide she instigated and monitored a "my space" account which was created for the sole purpose of communicating with Meier's daughter."

In an interview before the story was first published Nov. 11 in the Journal, Lori Drew said the report was "totally wrong" but declined to explain what she thought was incorrect.

Banas said the report, in essence, is correct, but that in other interviews, including the one with him, Lori Drew has maintained that it was not her idea to create the account.

Lori Drew's daughter was an on-again, off-again friend of Megan's for several years. In the summer of 2006, the two girls had a falling out.

Banas said Grills found Megan's MySpace account. Megan would not accept either Grills or the Drews' daughter as a "friend" on her account.

But Megan readily accepted Josh Evans. The phony account included a photo of a handsome 16-year-old boy who said he was new to the area, from a broken home and found Megan attractive. Megan and Josh quickly struck up a friendship.

Banas said it was Grills who created the Josh Evans account.

Regarding Megan's MySpace account, Tina and Ron Meier had the password and closely monitored their daughter's use.

Tina Meier has said her daughter for many years battled depression and struggled to keep her weight down and was thrilled Josh was interested in her.

Megan had switched schools and was attending Immaculate Conception in Dardenne Prairie for eighth grade and was the happiest she had been in years, her parents say.

Banas said that Lori Drew said she knew Megan had attention deficit disorder but did not know Megan suffered from depression. Ron Meier disputes that.

"Lori Drew knew without a doubt that our daughter suffered from depression," he said Monday. "She knew the medications that she was on for depression. She knew that Megan was in counseling and went to therapy."

The actions of the Drews and Grill were not criminal, Banas said, because their intent was not to stalk, endanger or harass.

"They did it so they could find out what Megan was saying about Mrs. Drew's daughter," Banas said. "That is undisputed.

"The only purpose was to find out what one little girl was saying about another little girl," he said.

Banas said his review has brought to light loopholes in existing laws that need to be "cleaned up." For example, he said, the state charge of harassment makes no mention of the Internet.

Banas said - as Tina Meier also has said - in the hours before Megan took her life, she was upset and was firing off mean messages with foul language.

Tina Meier had left Megan alone on the MySpace account because she had to take her younger daughter to an orthodontist appointment. Megan had promised to sign off as soon as she had finished writing a message. She didn't and things got worse.

Banas said Lori Drew should have ended the charade.

"The adults should have said something to stop this and not become involved in a spat with a couple of 13-year-old girls," Banas said.

"I think parents need to step back and take a look at what can happen when you become too involved with your child as a friend and not as a parent," Banas said.

Banas said he was aware of the national outrage directed at the Drews, much of it originating in cyberspace. Lori and Curt Drew have had their address posted on the Internet, as well as their phone numbers. One site showed a satellite photo of their home.

In addition, the Drews' home has been vandalized.

"Because we can't prosecute somebody, it certainly does not justify violating the law," Banas said.

He described Lori Drew as "upset, cautious and guarded" when he interviewed her. Banas said that Lori Drew felt "terrible" about Megan's death.

Banas said the Drews' daughter, now 15, is attending a different school and is not currently living with her parents. He said Lori Drew was fearful of telling him where her daughter lives.

The Meiers did not attend Monday's press conference.

Ron Meier questioned Banas' review of the case.

"Did he ever talk to me? No," Ron Meier said. "Did he ever talk to Tina? No. Did he talk to the 18-year-old employee? No. The only ones he ever talked to were Curt and Lori Drew."

Banas said he did not talk to Ron Meier because of a pending criminal vandalism charge. Ron Meier is accused of tearing up the Drews' front lawn with his pickup truck in March.

Banas did talk to Tina Meier Friday. But Ron Meier said that conversation was for Banas to inform her of his decision.

Banas was asked Monday if he came away from this case with insights or conclusions regarding cyberspace.

Yes, he said, "You don't know who you are talking to."

SOURCE

CLICK HERE FOR AN OPEN DISCUSSION BOARD ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

PLEASE CONTINUE THE PRESSURE ON THE LAW MAKERS TO CHARGE LORI DREW!

Write and/or fax a letter to:

Jack Banas, Prosecuting Attorney (who refuses to file charges and talk to the Meier famiy directly!)
Courts Administration Building
Room 601
300 North Second Street
St. Charles, MO 63301
~~~~~~~~~~

Tom Neer,
St Charles County Sheriff Department
101 Sheriff Dierker Court
O' Fallon, MO 63366
Fax: (636) 949-3078
E-Mail: sheriff@sccmo.org

Mrs. Lori Drew, the ADULT woman who started it all, actually had the gall to file a complaint against the parents of the girl she tormented, for destroying a "foosball table" she asked them to hide for Christmas.

The Meier family, when they learned of Drew's harassment of their daughter months after her death, destroyed the foosball table and drove its remains onto the Drew lawn. The police filed a report about the property damage -- but not about Drew's harassment and goading of Meier?!

Tell the police to drop the property charges and file new ones against Mrs. Drew.
~~~~~~~~

Rep. Doug Funderburk
MO House of Representatives
201 West Capitol Avenue
Room 236B Jefferson City MO 65101

Congressman Todd Akin (St. Louis)
District Offices 301 Sovereign Court, Ste. 201
St. Louis, MO 63011
314-590-0029 voice
314-590-0037 fax
EMAIL CONGRESSMAN AKIN

If you're not from Missouri, also write your own senator and representative. Ask them to work on a federal law that would make online stalking, punishable by mandatory community service, mandatory counseling and/or jail time.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - CONTACT
SENATORS - CONTACT
~~~~~~~~~~

Ed Weeks
President and CEO
The Saint Peters Chamber of Commerce
1236 Jungermann Road, Suite C.
St. Peters, Missouri 63376
Fax 636-447-9575

Mrs. Lori Drew is a member of this above Chamber. Make sure the Chamber knows that using a business temp to harass someone, albeit a 13 year girl, using their office equipment, goes against all ethics. Ask that Lori Drew and her company's membership be suspended immediately.
~~~~~~~~~~

United States Attorney (Eastern Missouri)
Catherine Hanaway
Thomas Eagleton U.S. Courthouse
111 S. 10th Street, 20th Floor
St. Louis, MO 63102
Fax: 314.539.2309

Carrie Costantin
Assistant United States Attorney
Project Safe Child Coordinator
Cybercrime Task Force
Fax: 314-539-2309

Ask the US Attorneys to take on this case and punish the Drew family for facilitating this girl's death.