This is a great and lengthy article about the viability of the MySpace lawsuit. It’s a great read but the last paragraph, in my opinion, sums up the whole situation…
At the end of the day, however, as long as users are willing to lie and circumvent, there is a limit to how effective controls can be. There are inherent perils involved in hooking up in cyberspace – and parents need to be the ones who educate their children about such dangers.
Hopefully, common sense will prevail.
In murder investigation, police search MySpace.com:
(Crown Heights-WABC, June 24, 2006) – The NYPD is trying to solve a murder mystery involving a 16-year-old girl from Brooklyn. They are now looking on the popular web site MySpace.com for any leads.
Police at the 77th Precinct in Crown Heights say they’re still looking for 16-year-old Chanel Petro Nixon killer. They believe it may be someone the victim knew.
Chanel Petro Nixon will remain sweet-16 for eternity and that’s just how her heart-broken family wants her to be remembered.
“It’s already out that she was chopped up and she was not. Her body was whole. Her body wasn’t even cut. She wasn’t stabbed or anything,” said Errol Wilson, the victim’s cousin.
Her family is now in shock. Relatives are trying to cope with the gruesome way the body was found.
Officials say her remains were discovered stuffed inside a garbage bag that was dumped on Kingston Avenue, just one mile away from home. Police say when they found Chanel’s body she was partially clothed but there were no signs of sexual assault.
Investigators are now looking into conversations the teen had on MySpace.com, an internet web site popular with teens. Her cousin says the Boys and Girl’s High School student loved to chat online. Still, no one knows who would want to strangle Chanel and put her body in a garbage bag.
Neighbors say they saw Chanel Sunday morning as she crossed the courtyard in front of her building. She was dressed in her Sunday best and on her way to church.
“She had a long life. A prosperous life ahead of her,” said Wilson. “Unfortunately, it was cut short.”
I couldn’t find her MySpace at this time, but I will keep you up to date on any developments in this case.
My prayers and condolences go out to the Nixon family.
UPDATE: Chanel’s MySpace is here.
Teen Plans to Marry Middle East Man She Met on Myspace.com:
Oh, cut me a break…
GILFORD, Mich. A teenager who flew to the Middle East to be with a man she met on MySpace.com said Friday she intends to marry him.
“I love him very much,” 17-year-old Katherine Lester said of Abdullah Jimzawi, 20, who works in his father’s business delivering goods to West Bank convenience stores.
Lester appeared on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” with her father and stepmother. Jimzawi also spoke with ABC during a taped portion of the segment, describing how the pair “can’t live without each other.”
After hearing what Jimzawi said, Lester began weeping.
“It’s true,” she said. “I love you. That’s all I can say.”
The two have resumed communication online since she returned home.
“Our initial reaction was to isolate her, to lock her up and just keep her safe here in America,” said her father, Terry Lester. “But that’s unrealistic because you can see the love they have for each other.”
Ok, I can honestly say that her father is an idiot.
How many of us that are in our 30s can look back and say we were honestly in love at 17? I can’t. How about you?
Man accused in MySpace luring agrees to plead guilty:
This is a follow-up to the story of Michael Ramos, the man who was stung by a group of teenage boys…
FONTANA – A man arrested after traveling to a park to allegedly have sex with an imaginary girl conjured up by teens on MySpace.com agreed to a very real deal with prosecutors on Wednesday.
Fontana resident Michael Ramos, 48, was taken into custody in early March after trying to meet who he thought was a 15-year-old girl named Jessica. He’d been chatting with ‘her’ for weeks on MySpace.
The girl actually was a fake account set up by a group of boys looking to cheer up a friend who recently had broken up with a girlfriend.
After the boys spied on Ramos at the park, they called police, who arrested him.
On Wednesday, Ramos agreed to plead guilty to one count of an attempted lewd act with a child aged 14 or 15 and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
He will be sentenced July 26, at which time a judge will rule on the details of the plea as well as a probation officer’s recommendations, said Prosecutor Karen Martinez of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
Other terms of the agreement that could be imposed include five years of probation and a list of prohibited search terms on his home computer, she said.
There’s a link to his MySpace on the original entry, and it’s still up.
TIME.com: A Countersuit in the MySpace Case?
A 14-year-old girl is suing the social networking site, where she met the man charged with sexually assaulting her. Now the man she says assaulted her may pursue his own legal case against MySpace.
It has been an unlikely legal wrangle from the start. First, a 14-year-old Austin, Texas, girl and her mother filed a $30 million lawsuit against MySpace.com, where the teenager claims she met a man who assaulted her. Now, the college student charged with the sexual assault also is considering suing the popular social networking site.
The defense attorney for Pete Solis, the 19-year-old Texas community college student charged with sexually assaulting the girl dubbed “Julie Doe” in her lawsuit, told TIME that if the Texas courts accept the premise that MySpace is liable because the two met there, then his client also has a claim, since the alleged victim falsely portrayed herself on the webiste as 15 years old.
“He’s been, in effect, just as much a victim if not more,” says Adam Reposa, the attorney for Solis, who is facing up to 20 years in prison on charges of second degree felony sexual assault. Since the lawsuit against MySpace also names Solis as a defendant, Reposa said he will “cross-file” and also sue MySpace and its owner, News Corporation. “MySpace wasn’t there when they went to Whataburger. MySpace wasn’t there when they went to the movie and MySpace wasn’t there when they climbed in the backseat,” Reposa said. “Meeting on MySpace if that alone is enough, then we can make the same claim for damages.”
This has officially gotten ridiculous.
New details come in Katherine Lester case:
MID MICHIGAN (WJRT) – (06/22/06)–There were new developments Thursday in the case of Katherine Lester. The Mid-Michigan teen flew halfway around the world two weeks ago to meet with a Palestinian man she met on MySpace.com.
Thursday her mother’s attorney asked a judge to rescind a decision made Monday in which her father was granted temporary custody.
That petition was filed in Tuscola County’s Family Division of Judicial Court Thursday morning.
The judge in the case, Judge W. Wallace Kent, denied the petition, and she will remain with her father until a hearing is scheduled.
In the petition, Lester’s mother’s attorney states numerous reasons of why she should be returned to the custody of her mother.
One of those reasons is an interview ABC12’s Bill Harris had with Lester, her father and stepmother.
Am I just dense? Because I don’t remember any article mentioning her parents were divorced. Not that it matters. But if this situation was a television show, I’d turn it off for being too corny.
Public reacts to MySpace.com lawsuit:
Local reaction, from Austin, Texas, about the MySpace lawsuit…
Reaction was mixed Tuesday after reports that MySpace.com is being sued for not doing enough to protect young users from predators.
Some say the girl’s parents should have known better.
Lowell Coleman likes to have coffee at the Spider House and frequently checks his MySpace.com account.
“It’s a friendly networking-type thing,” he said. “What’s great about it is you’re able to prescreen before meeting a person.”
But Coleman says he knows not everyone on MySpace.com is who they say they are.
“Then again, if you’re a sexual predator, it does give you the accessibility to go ahead and prey on a particular person.”
David Deschodt, who has an 11-year-old, wonders were the girls’ parents were.
“What was that kid doing on a website without any supervision?” he said.
Other parents KVUE News spoke to said children should always be supervised when using the Internet. Many weren’t blaming MySpace.com.
“I don’t know if MySpace.com can be accountable. I really think it’s up to the parents to monitor.” said Lacey Cominsky who has an 11-year-old. “There needs to be more personal responsibility. I think I know there’s punitive damages that encourage a corporation that makes a lot of money to change their policy. It’s not about the plaintiffs just getting that money.”
Your thoughts?
Michigan teenager involved in Web romance charged with being a runaway:
She’s not being criminally charged, but this article clarifies some things regarding Katherine Lester…
DETROIT — Authorities have filed a runaway juvenile petition against a Michigan teenager who flew to the Middle East to be with a man she met on the MySpace.com social networking Internet site.
The paperwork was filed Monday in Tuscola County Family Court by the county sheriff and prosecutor against Katherine Lester of Gilford, said Kyle Jaskula, the court administrator.
At a hearing on Monday, Judge W. Wallace Kent Jr. ordered Lester to give up her passport and undergo counseling. He did not rule on the validity of the petition, and further hearings have not been scheduled.
If the judge finds that Lester is a runaway, she could be placed under court supervision until she turns 18. Such supervision usually means she would be monitored by a probation officer and made to undergo counseling, Jaskula said.
The petition is not a criminal offense, Jaskula said Tuesday.
So it’s like being on parole but without having committed any crimes. And for those of you who are whining that it’s not fair, then she should have thought of that before she ran away.
Think about it for a second. If they had succeeded in getting married, do you know what kind of international incident this would have caused? She should be thankful that she was stopped before they did.
And here’s some advice from Ol’ Uncle Trench to the teenagers who are supporting them. 99.999% of the time, the guy or girl you date at 16 will NOT be the person you spend the rest of your life with.
Get over it.
Tuscola County teen’s family trying to keep her home:
Remember when I posted the article that said Katherine Lester’s parents could use the courts to prevent her from running away again? It seems that’s what they’re doing…
TUSCOLA COUNTY (WJRT) – (06/19/06)–The family of a Tuscola County teen is making an attempt to keep her home. Katherine Lester, 16, of Gilford, recently flew to Jordan where United States authorities caught up with her.
Lester was on her way to Israel to meet a man she met on MySpace.com. A runaway petition has been filed in Tuscola County that could put limits on any of her future travel plans.
If granted, the court system will intervene to help the family deal with this Internet and international love story.
The runaway petition was submitted to the probate court and requested by the Akron-Fairgrove junior’s family in the hope of trying to keep her home.
“At this point, of course, the young lady leaving the country in the way that she did, obviously there’s tremendous concerns of her not following the reasonable and really legitimate commands of her parents,” said Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene.
MySpace.com is a social networking Internet site. Her family found out about her plans and FBI agents in Amman, Jordan, persuaded her to return home.
But the family worries she may try this again, and Reene says the probate court could help in trying to keep her in the county.
“The probate court can do a variety of things,” Reene said.
“One thing is counseling. It can provide certain things that the girl has to do at different times to keep track of her and be sure — again, help her — evaluate all the considerations in her life at this point.
While Lester turns 17 on Wednesday, the parents have legal supervision until she turns 18.
“But the family probate court can still intervene up until she turns 18 in an effort to keep her on the right path, provide her with counseling and intervene again to hopefully ensure her safety,” Reene said.
While the probate court judge did not sign the runaway petition this morning, that is expected, which would mean Lester and her family will be back in court soon.
Can you blame them?
Teenager and her mother sue MySpace.com for $30 million:
A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a Buda man she met on MySpace.com sued the popular Internet social networking site Monday for $30 million, claiming it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators.
The lawsuit claims the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 “utterly ineffective.”
“MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online,” said Adam Loewy, who is representing the girl and her mother in the lawsuit against MySpace, its parent company News Corp. and Pete Solis, the 19-year-old accused by police of sexually assaulting the girl.
Solis contacted the girl through her MySpace Web site in April, telling her that he was a high school senior who played on the football team, according to the lawsuit. She told him she was a freshman in high school and gave him her cell phone number, the lawsuit said.
In May, he picked her up at school, took her out to eat and to a movie and then drove her to an apartment complex parking lot in South Austin where he sexually assaulted her, police have said. He was arrested May 19.
A month before Solis initially contacted the girl on MySpace.com, representatives of the Internet site told CBS News that they protected users younger than 16 from being contacted by people who didn’t know them, according to the lawsuit.
“That is obviously false,” Loewy said. “There are ways to contact them.”
The lawsuit includes news reports of other sexual assaults in which victims were contacted through MySpace. They include a 22-year-old Wisconsin man charged with six counts of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a 27-year-old Connecticut man accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
Why do I get the feeling that this attorney is going to be the Jack Thompson of MySpace?