Woman found guilty of misdeameanors in MySpace suicide case

Here's the update on the story that was the topic of this post a few days ago. An excerpt from Jennifer Steinhauer's latest report follows:

A federal jury here issued what legal experts said was the country’s first cyberbullying verdict Wednesday, convicting a Missouri woman of three misdemeanor charges of computer fraud for her involvement in creating a phony account on MySpace to trick a teenager, who later committed suicide.

The jury deadlocked on a fourth count of conspiracy against the woman, Lori Drew, 49, and the judge, George H. Wu of Federal District Court, declared a mistrial on that charge.

Although it was unclear how severely Ms. Drew would be punished — the jury reduced the charges to misdemeanors from felonies, and no sentencing date was set — the conviction was highly significant, computer fraud experts said, because it was the first time that a federal statute designed to combat computer crimes was used to prosecute what were essentially abuses of a user agreement on a social networking site.

Drew could be imprisoned for up to three years, and she could be fined as much as $300,000. No mention is made of whether the victim's family has brought or will bring a tort suit against Drew. I am certain, however, that tort law--like criminal law--is being pushed to evolve in this cyber age.