New legal tack in U.S. Web harassment

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Prosecutors in Los Angeles have taken a new direction in prosecuting a woman who posed as a teenage boy online and harassed a girl who later killed herself.

The case revolves around the 2006 suicide of a Missouri girl who thought she had been rejected by a boy she had been talking with online at the MySpace social Web site. It later came to light her correspondent was really the mother of one of the girl's former friends.

Local and federal authorities were unable to find any statutes to charge the woman, Lori Drew, but prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles have assembled a grand jury to charge Drew with fraud, The Los Angeles Times reported.

They claim jurisdiction, as MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills, and allege Drew defrauded the company by creating a false profile. They cited a police report that said Drew created the profile "for the sole purpose of communicating" with the girl.

Prosecutors are also looking at federal wire fraud and cyber fraud statutes, the newspaper said.