TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: Social Media Crime

  • ‘Megan Had It Coming’ is a hoax and other news

    MySpace Bully Talks Back (Maybe):

    If you’ve been following the Megan Meier story like I have then you’re familiar with the ‘Megan Had It Coming’ blog. I’m not going to link to it because whoever is running it doesn’t deserve the attention. Anyway, it’s allegedly being posted by someone close to the situation who believes that Megan Meier deserved what she got. Some media outlets think it may actually be Lori Drew posting that blog. As a matter of fact, I had a journalist ask me my opinion on its authenticity yesterday. I think it’s a hoax and I’ll tell you why.

    The posts at ‘MHIC’ are awfully similar to the comments left by someone calling themselves ANONYMOUS that posted on one of my Megan Meier entries. The e-mail address they used to leave a comment traced back to the MySpace of a 16-year-old black girl from Michigan. It is possible that ANONYMOUS was using a fake address that just happened to coincide with that MySpace but the MySpace in question has since been deleted ever since I made that fact public. The second reason I think it’s a fake is because ANONYMOUS’ IP address traced back to Louisville, KY. That’s roughly 260 miles from where the Drews lived. Now since the Drews have allegedly disappeared that might be where they’ve moved to but I can’t be certain of that without knowing the date that they moved. Another reason I think it’s a fake is that I would like to believe that even Lori Drew, in light of what’s happened, wouldn’t be that stupid or callous to make a blog called ‘Megan Had It Coming’.

    However…

    Woman Accused Of Setting Up False MySpace Page That Led To Girl’s Suicide Breaks Her Silence:
    …it seems that Lori Drew is speaking through her attorney.

    But now Drew denies she was even home when the malicious messages were being sent. “She didn’t find out about it until after Megan had taken her own life,” her lawyer Jim Briscoe told a U.S. network.

    A police report contends that Drew asked an 18-year-old employee to create the false I.D., but there’s now some confusion about how it actually came into being and who sent the messages. She “did not create the MySpace account,” Briscoe maintains. “She did not instruct anybody to create the MySpace account. She never made any communications through the MySpace account.”

    Her lawyer claims Drew is losing business because people are blaming her for the girl’s death and are afraid to be associated with her. Her own neighbours will no longer even talk to her. And if the motive really was to see what was being said about her own child online, that’s backfired, too. “Her daughter has had to drop out of school because of the harassment,” Briscoe reveals.

    He claims even if she did have some knowledge about the existence of the site, she wasn’t aware of the kinds of notes being posted to the girl or she would have stopped it. “She wished she did. If she could turn back the clock, that’s the part she would do differently,” he insists.

    Cry me a river. The Meiers aren’t buying it and neither am I. The Meiers are planning civil action against the Drews. I guess the Drews will have to come out of their hole eventually.

  • Child rapist pleads guilty

    Baby Rapist Faces Life in Prison:

    It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about James Wamsley. He might stick out in your mind. He was accused of raping an infant. I say was accused because he pleaded guilty to the charges.

    As part of the plea, Wamsley was also found guilty of an aggravating factor, including the vulnerability of the child.

    Aggravating factors affect how the teen will be sentenced.

    Since then, lawyers have duked it out over another aggravating factor: the injuries to the baby.

    In a trial hearing Tuesday, a judge ruled the teen is guilty of that second aggravating factor, which could put him away for life.

    Wamsley was charged as an adult and if anybody has a problem with that I present the following…

    Experts said most rape cases in children don’t require surgery at all.

    But this little boy was hurt so badly, he needed surgery in Spokane.

    In nearly two decades as a pediatric specialist, Dr. Zirkle has seen only a handful of cases involving an infant.

    “There probably aren’t more than 15 or 20 in my career that are under the age of one,” she said.

    Dr. Zirkle was one of a handful of doctors who examined the little boy’s medical information, and confirmed his wounds wouldn’t have healed on their own.

    Wamsley is looking at a possible life sentence. Sentencing is scheduled for January 8th.

  • The Drews disappear

    MySpace Suicide Teen’s Harassers Vanish:

    According to this blog post from AOL News Bloggers, it seems the Megan Meier’s tormentors, the Drews, have disappeared off the face of the earth.

    If, after reading about the story, you’re filled with a similar urge to vandalize the Drews’ house, you’re not alone. Some media outlets posted their names, and they’ve been the subject of escalating violence, detailed here. Now it seems they’ve disappeared from the neighborhood, leaving — wisely — no forwarding address.

    I wonder if they left before or after yesterday’s press conference about no criminal charges being filed.

  • No criminal charges in Megan Meier’s suicide

    Prosecutor: No Criminal Charges in MySpace Suicide:

    As expected St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas announced at a press conference earlier today that there will be no criminal files charged in the harassment/suicide death of Megan Meier.

    “Their purpose was never to cause her emotional harassment that we can prove,” Banas said. “There’s a difference between what people think or what we may believe the reason was that they created this, it’s what we can prove and what a jury would believe.”

    Banas said statements from the neighbor and two teens who participated in the fictitious account couldn’t meet criminal standards for the state’s statutes on harassment, stalking or endangering the welfare of a child.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation lead the investigation after the U.S. Attorney’s Office was contacted by the Meier family, Banas said.

    In a perfect world, there would be charges filed against the adults that caused Megan Meier to commit suicide. Then again in a perfect world, adults wouldn’t descend into this kind of behavior then act like it wasn’t their fault.

  • Florida man arrested for sexual battery

    Richard Gagnon Jr.
    Richard Gagnon Jr.

    Detectives:Man met Lakeland teen through MySpace and Sexually Battered Her:

    That distinguished looking gentleman at right is one 39-year-old Richard Gagnon Jr. He’s been arrested for performing sexual acts on a 14-year-old girl that he met over MySpace. Gagnon is accused of making several trips from Fort Lauderdale to Lakeland, Florida to have sex with the girl.

    Detectives say Gagnon sexually battered her on several of those trips. Gagnon admitted to investigators that he knew the victim was 14 years old.

    During the most recent incident, on Friday, investigators say the girl left her Lakeland home around 11:30 pm while her mom was sleeping.

    The victim agreed to meet Gagnon, and the two drove together to the Motel 6 located at 3120 US Hwy 98 North in Lakeland.

    When the girl’s mother woke up in the morning, investigators say, she found a note written by the victim girl saying that she had left and would return in a week.

    The mother called the Sheriff’s Office, and detectives, after talking to the victim’s friends, learned their location.

    Gagnon is facing numerous charges including traveling to meet a minor and enticing a minor via the internet.

  • Hacker gets 110 years

    Hacker gets 110 years for threats on MySpace:

    33-year-old Ivory Dickerson of North Carolina was sentenced to 110 years. He was accused of hacking into the MySpaces of girls from Brevard County, Florida. Sentence a little harsh you say? Well, Dickerson would hack into the MySpaces and the girls’ computers to try to extort pornographic images of themselves. Sentence still too harsh you say?

    While investigating the hacking case, the local FBI Innocent Images Task Force uncovered a cache of child pornography dating to 1998 and videos of Dickerson with young girls, thought to be about 15 years old. In the video, Dickerson boasts of drinking with them in his room and having sexual encounters with them, according to court records.

    Not so harsh now huh?

  • Man posts underage pics of ex on Nexopia

    Man pleads guilty to distributing child porn:

    21-year-old Brian Johnathan Schultz of Edmonton, Alberta pleaded guilty to charges of distributing child porn. It seems that Schultz was dating a girl who was 16 and photographed their sexual exploits. The girl tried to end the relationship but Schultz couldn’t accept that. Schultz had started posting nude pictures of the girl on his Nexopia profile and was offering more for anyone who requested. When the girl contacted Nexopia the photos were pulled. Schultz then presented the girl with a diamond ring but the girl still refused. Then Schultz had set up a complete website offering photos of the girl.

    Canadian law states…

    The age of consent is 18 years where the sexual activity involves exploitative activity, such as prostitution, pornography or where there is a relationship of trust, authority or dependency. For other sexual activity, the age of consent is 14 years.

    So the sex was legal but the photos were not.

    Schultz is set to be sentenced early next year.

    First off I’ll probably have my man card revoked for this but ladies, don’t let your SOs take nude photos of you. Eventually, they’ll find their way to the internet. Now to the guys, we’ve all been there. We’ve all had the girlfriend that we wanted back no matter the cost after we got dumped. However, have some dignity and let her go. You’ll both be better off that way.

    Thanks to LiLO for the tip.

  • Katherine Lester breaks it off

    MySpace romance ends on Dr. Phil:

    Everyone’s favorite globetrotting Myspace runaway teen Katherine Lester was on the Dr. Phill show once again. This time it was to break off the relationship she had with the Arab man known as Abdullah Psycho. To make matters more humiliating for Abdullah is that the break up was done via satellite.

    “I’m not going to be with you any more,” the 18-year-old told her Palestinian boyfriend, Abdullah Jinzawi, who watched her on a monitor from Jericho, Jordan.
    Jinzawi sat silent for a moment, pulled off his microphone and stepped away from the camera.

    “Well, that’s mature,” McGraw said.

    Earlier on the show, Lester told McGraw — after some prodding — that Jinzawi was emotionally and physically abusive.

    So is getting dumped via satellite better or worse than being dumped by text message?

    Anyway, it seems that Ms. Lester has finally realized what everybody was saying about her internet boyfriend. Hopefully, this saga has finally come to an end.

  • Anthony Uckele

    In court, San Jose girl tells of sex with adult she met online:

    Right now 24-year-old Anthony Uckele of Saratoga, California is facing 36 counts of lewd conduct that could put him behind bars for 78 years.

    He was arrested back in October 2005 for having sex with a 12-year-old girl that he met on MySpace. They’re trying the ‘she said she was 16’ defense but his actions betray him.

    The girl with the blue stuffed animal – a cloth-covered cat that she hugged closely to her chest – said she called Uckele after reading his first message and agreed to meet him at a Starbucks near her home in Willow Glen. From there, he took her to a video arcade and a park, a pattern they would repeat several times over a period of a few weeks.

    As early as their second meeting – and a few weeks before they had sexual intercourse – the girl said she told Uckele she was 12 and he said he was 22.

    When he drove her home, Uckele dropped her off a block from her house because they knew her father wouldn’t approve of their age difference, the girl testified. Uckele also warned the girl not to tell any of her friends about him, “because he was too old.”

    Eventually, she said, Uckele persuaded her to sneak out of her father’s house at night and meet him a block away. The girl testified that Uckele drove her to his mother’s home in Saratoga, where he persuaded her to undress in his bedroom and have intercourse.

    “I was scared. It was something I wasn’t used to,” she testified in a low voice. “He said, ‘It’s going to be OK. Nothing bad is going to happen.’ ”

    After more encounters over the next several months, the girl read about sexual abuse in a library book and decided to tell someone who notified police, Shore said. But before authorities arrested Uckele, they arranged to record a telephone conversation between the pair.

    On the recording, which Shore played in court, the girl said several times that she felt it was wrong for them to have had sex.

    “OK. I didn’t force you to do anything,” Uckele replied. “If you tell someone, I’m going away to prison for 10 years. You’ll ruin my life.”

    And let’s not forget that the age of consent in California is 18, not 16. D’oh. Not only that but now Uckele is facing a lot more than 10 years. And your life should be ruined since you ruined that little girl’s life.

  • YouTube rejects mutant monitoring

    YouTube rejects calls to monitor videos:

    YouTube and their parent company Google are saying they will not monitor their site for videos inciting violence against schools. Much like the video that Pekka-Eric Auvinen posted shortly before killing 8 at Jokela High School in Finland.

    Peter Fleischer, privacy counsel at Google, which bought YouTube last year, said the website was not considering passing more information to the police to avert such events. “Logistically we couldn’t do pre-screening,” he said. “We don’t want to become censors of the web.”

    I fail to see how that would be any different from pulling copyrighted material off their site. They don’t seem to have an issue with that.

    Mr Fleischer said privacy was of paramount importance but admitted there was no blanket ban on passing on information. “If it were child pornography then we would inform the authorities immediately. In the case of somebody doing a video that looks something like hate speech, however, we would remove the account. In most of these cases we don’t report it.”

    Except they don’t suspend the accounts. The accounts for Auvinen and Dillon Cossey were still active after their respective incidents occurred. Cossey’s was even up for weeks after his arrest.

    As long as YouTube allows these hate-filled mutants to post video tributes to mass murderers they’ll just continue to be the whipping boy whenever one of these events happens.