TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: MySpace

  • Indiana doesn’t get it either

    Indiana doesn’t get it either

    Law could ban sex offenders from Myspace:

    Just like his cohorts from other states, Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter just doesn’t get it. Like his other counterparts, he is proposing legislation that is supposed to keep registered sex offenders off of MySpace and other social networking sites.

    Carter says convicted sex offenders will be required to give police their usernames and emails at the same time they register with their basic information like where they live.

    As usual, Attorney General Carter doesn’t address the issues of registered sex offenders using different e-mails and usernames that they gave police or sex offenders who haven’t been caught yet. Not to mention clueless parents who let their children roam the internet unchecked. Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Those clueless parents are also voters.

  • Sean Lennon pleads guilty

    Sean Lennon pleads guilty

    Again, no, not John Lennon’s son.

    Ravena man pleads guilty to raping teen he met on MySpace:

    I originally posted about Sean Lennon here. He was arrested over the summer for having sex with a 14-year-old girl he met on MySpace. The 21-year-old from Ravena, New York pleaded guilty to one count of Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance and one count of Rape in the Third Degree, both felonies.

    Under the terms of the plea bargain, Lennon will serve seven years in prison and ten years post release supervision. He also must to register as a sex offender and have no contact with the victim.

  • Federal subpoenas issued in Megan Meier case

    Federal subpoenas issued in Megan Meier case

    L.A. grand jury issues subpoenas in Web suicide case:

    A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has issued subpoenas in the suicide death of Megan Meier from Missouri. For those of you living under a rock, Megan Meier, at the age of 13-committed suicide when a boy she met on MySpace rejected her and demeaned her. Except the MySpace boy wasn’t a boy at all but adult neighbor Lori Drew. Drew wanted to see if Megan was talking about Drew’s daughter behind her back.

    Authorities in Missouri could not find anything to charge Lori Drew with, but the U.S. prosecutors in L.A. have taken a different approach. They’re thinking of charging Lori Drew with fraud for creating the fake MySpace. And why is this happening in L.A. you ask.

    The prosecutors believe they have jurisdiction because MySpace — the would-be victim — is based in Beverly Hills, the sources said.

    The subpoenas were issued to MySpace and what the article says are “witnesses in the case.”

    Here’s hoping that there can be some modicum of justice for Megan Meier.

  • Douglas Brian Wall

    Douglas Brian Wall

    Douglas Brian Wall

    Police: Man Lured Minor From MySpace:

    The surprised looking dude over there is 26-year-old Douglas Brian Wall of Ferndale, Michigan. He’s in jail for having sex with a 15-year-old girl that he lured to his house via MySpace. He’s also accused of supplying drugs and alcohol to minors. A regular pillar of the community, this guy is.

    A parent tipped off police shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve. The parent said he discovered his minor children had been at Wall’s home.

    A search of his home turned up marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

    The investigation also revealed that Wall had sex with a 15-year-old girl from “a nearby city” several times over a two-month period. Police said other juveniles, some as young as 14, were in the house during the encounters, drinking and using drugs.

    I wonder how many parents were totally unaware of their kid’s behavior. All it takes is a little check-up on their computer.

    Mr. Hall here, however, just may possibly be the absolute least productive member of society and deserves to be thrown in a hole for an awfully long time.

  • Sex master Adam

    Sex master Adam

    How a sinister MySpace predator targeted teen girls:

    Recently, Buffalo, NY police arrested 48-year-old cafeteria worker David W. Evans. On MySpace, he said he was a muscular 20-year-old called “Sex Master Adam”. He’s been charged with coercing a minor to produce child pornography, which is a federal felony.

    Apparently, he either coerced or convinced underage girls to send him nude pictures of themselves. Police believe there may have been as many as 100 victims.

    The police are also left asking themselves some questions that parents should be asking too.

    As police continue their investigation and more girls are located, questions are being raised about the victims, too:

    • Regardless of how old she thought Adam was, why would any teenage girl send naked pictures of herself to a man she had never met?

    • How could the girls’ parents be unaware of what was going on?

    • How common is this kind of conduct in the Internet age?

    I’ll take those questions on.

    Usually in these cases, children are coerced and threatened into sending these types of pictures to predators.

    Some parents still refuse to monitor their kids’ internet activities.

    Unfortunately, it’s all too common.

    I can’t stress this enough to parents. Keep the computer in a common area where it can be monitored easily. Learn how to check the internet history of your child’s browsing. Those two simple things will go a long way in keeping your child safe online.

  • Anthony Uckele convicted

    Anthony Uckele convicted

    Man guilty of more charges in MySpace case:

    I originally posted about Anthony Uckele here. He’s the 24-year-old from Saratoga, California, who was facing 36 charges for a sexual ‘relationship’ he had with a 12-year-old girl he met on MySpace.

    Well, it seems that Mr. Uckele has been convicted of 20 of those charges. On the remaining 15 charges, the jury was deadlocked. So now Uckele is only looking at 46 years behind bars, rather than the 78 he could have received. He is scheduled to be sentenced on February 29th.

    What’s almost disturbing as Uckele himself is the number of people posting comments not only on this site but on the newspaper’s site that blame the 12-year-old victim. You people have issues, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you had certain criminal sexual leanings yourself.

  • Metal Molester barred from the stage

    Metal Molester barred from the stage

    Judge in Sex Case Bans Rocker From Stage:

    One of the more heated discussions that have been ongoing on this site is that of one Randall Shesto II. He’s the 21-year-old lead singer of the metal ‘band’ Nailwounds. He was caught not once but twice with underage girls, earning him the nickname on this site of The Metal Molester.

    Well, it seems that the Molester is Metal no more, as a judge has barred him from appearing on stage for 5 years.

    “You love your music,” the judge told the defendant. “Your music has been the tool by which you have ingratiated your way into the lives of these girls. You may not play in a band in any public appearances during the term of your probationary period. I’m taking away from you the tools by which you worked your misdeeds, sir.”

    I can just see the judge saying to him “Now I bid you good day sir.” before slamming down his gavel.

    Shesto was also sentenced to a month behind bars, 11 months of work release, and 5 years probation. He also can’t use the internet or a cell phone without permission from his probation officer.

    Rock on justice system. \m/

  • Registered sex offender found drunk with kids in car

    Registered sex offender found drunk with kids in car

    “Police: Sex Offender Befriended Teens On MySpace”:

    It’s always disheartening when any kind of news article starts out like this…

    Late Friday night, Michael Ingram, a 39-year-old registered sex offender, was found riding around drunk, with five 12 and 13-year-old boys in his car.

    He was busted when one of his victims text messaged his brother to get help. It’s alleged that Ingram of the Nashville, Tenn. area, used MySpace to befriend one of the boys, then through that one boy met the others.

    Ingram was previously convicted in the 1990 rape of a boy.

  • Another MySpace Lawsuit

    Another MySpace Lawsuit

    Victim’s parents sue MySpace after suicide, assault by Celina man:

    The family of a 14-year-old California girl known only as Julie Doe are suing MySpace after the girl committed suicide. Doe was sexually assaulted by 30-year-old Kiley Ryan Bowers of Celina, Texas after the two met on MySpace in 2005.

    Their online conversations led to a face-to-face meeting and the sexual assault near her home in Southern California.

    Mr. Bowers broke off the relationship several months later, and the girl fell into “a deep depression as a result of the failed, despicable relationship fostered over MySpace,” the lawsuit states. She killed herself in July 2006.

    Mr. Bowers, 30, pleaded guilty to traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor and was sentenced this summer to nine years in federal prison.

    Now let’s hear from the attorney…

    “MySpace knows that it is a haven for sexual predators, yet doesn’t put in any security measures to protect young girls,” said the family’s attorney, Jason Itkin. “We think that with MySpace’s right to make a profit comes a responsibility to protect its customers.”

    “The main goal of these lawsuits is to get MySpace to stand up and put in meaningful protections that will make it more difficult to search out and find young girls,” said Mr. Itkin, whose firm is representing six other families who have sued MySpace on similar allegations.

    I really hate to kick a family when they’re down, but this lawsuit was once tried already and failed. Mr. Itkin was involved in that lawsuit as well. Mr. Itkin says these lawsuits are to protect the children, but we all know it’s really about getting a huge payday.

    The sexual assault took place in the girl’s home. Where were the parents when this assault took place? Why weren’t the parents checking up on her MySpace activities? Families are supposed to come with built-in meaningful protection. They’re called parents.

    U.S. district judge Sam Sparks said it best when he dismissed the original lawsuit. “If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace,”

  • Megan Had It Coming is a hoax Part III: Hoax Confirmed

    Megan Had It Coming is a hoax Part III: Hoax Confirmed

    I’m usually not one to say I told you so….ah who the hell am I kidding? Thanks to Mondoreb, from DBKP we now know that ‘Megan Had It Coming’ was a hoax like I’ve been telling you all along. So if you’ll allow me…

    *AHEM*

    I told you so.

    But someone was even more right than me, and that would be Pat from Belchspeak. Early on he told me that it was probably someone from Encyclopedia Dramatica, and it turns out he was dead on. For those of you who don’t know, ED is a bizarro world version of Wikipedia that keeps track of all the drama on the internet. ED’s admission to it can be found here, where they also refer to yours truly as an internet genius. Yes, I know they’re being sarcastic.

    However, as crass and tasteless as this stunt was on ED’s part (as in I hope the hoaxter gets a kick in the balls by karma) the hoaxter has a point. Some assclown posts a blog claiming to be Lori Drew and a lot of you fell for it hook line and sinker, further perpetuating the sad realization that even today some people will believe anything they see on the internet.

    Remember Trench’s Internet Law #1 kids. Be skeptical and don’t trust anyone.