Manic MySpace Monday
While scum exists on the internet in all forms and in all places, MySpace seems to attract the real winners of the ‘ultimate losers’ club… So here’s the first of a segment that I may not do as regularly as my Wednesday series, but I’ll try to make Monday’s a bit more humorous by highlighting these idiots and dirtbags.
Now, most of these stories won’t have a direct connection to monitoring your kids’ online activities with PC Pandora monitoring software to keep them safe – but the idea of knowing what your kids do (not guessing, knowing) as a fool proof way to keep them safe still applies across the board.
So enjoy these tales of the losers and all-around crappy human beings that flock to MySpace and the stupidity they bring…
VISTA – Three men will stand trial for allegedly kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman one of them met on MySpace, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Vincent Barnett Jr., 22, Robert Melgoza, 21, and Brian Shippee, 21, will be arraigned May 19. They have pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated kidnapping for purposes of rape, forcible rape, and sodomy.
If convicted of the kidnapping charge, they face a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Barnett’s attorney, David Rawson, argued that the woman told investigators that Barnett wasn’t driving the SUV used to pick up the girl, and didn’t have sex with her.
“There’s no evidence that he did anything in this case other than be present,” Rawson said.
Prosecutor Dan Rodriguez said Shippee told investigators that Barnett had oral sex with the woman. Rodriguez said that Barnett also took photos and acted as a lookout.
Authorities say the woman went to Palomar College to chat online after she got into an argument with her family May 13, 2008. She encountered Barnett, who she didn’t know, and he invited her to a party.
Authorities say the group went to a liquor store, drank at an industrial park, and went to a trailer on the San Marcos property of Shippee’s neighbor, where the woman began blacking out.
Detective Kim Houry said Shippee told investigators he started having sex with the woman in the trailer. Shippee said she vomited in the trailer and seemed “woozy” later in a sport-utility vehicle, Houry said, but he said he didn’t think she was unconscious.
Houry testified DNA wasn’t found in the trailer, which appeared to have been cleaned, or the SUV. Houry said the men sexually assaulted the woman in the trailer and the SUV, took her to an industrial park in Vista, continued the attack, and left her there.
Editor’s note: The folks in the story below aren’t scumbags, they are just idiots for thinking MySpace – even the parts labeled “private – are actually private! If you sit with a group of people at a table in a restaurant and have a private conversation, and go on and on about how you hate your boss, and the boss comes over and listens in, and then you get fired – you can’t say “hey, that was a private conversation,” because it may have been between a select group, but anyone can eavesdrop. One of the best things my parents taught me was “be careful what you say because you never know who is listening.” The problem is that today, people think that because they are only writing and because the internet is so huge, no one will ‘hear’ what they say. That couldn’t be further from the truth… Everyone is listening; everyone is watching; and everyone has the right to do so since the internet is a public domain.
MySpace Comments Cost Two People Their Jobs
HACKENSACK, NJ — Comments on a social networking site led to the firing of two women, even though they made the comments on their own computers, on their own time.
Doreen Marino says she would never have guessed that her online complaints about the restaurant she worked in would get her fired.
Marino was fired in 2006, she says, because she made derogatory comments about her managers in a private discussion group on MySpace.
Discussion groups are invitation-only, password-protected areas on the web site that she and other employees created so they could gossip about the Houston’s restaurant where they worked.
“Better to vent there, in my opinion, take it somewhere where no one is going to hear you,” she says.
But then, a manager was able to get the password, and was not pleased. Both she and another employee were fired.
Marino says their privacy was violated. “They weren’t invited, they were not members of the group. In my opinion, they had no business there.”
She’s filed suit against the company for invasion of privacy. The parent group of Houston’s would not comment on the suit, but did say that the two were let go because of “unprofessional conduct,” including “disparaging comments about guests” and sharing insider knowlegde about the restaurant on the web site.
“I mean, where do we draw the line?” asks Marino. “We have the right to say what we want in a private environment.”
Or do they? Senior editor for Wired Magazine, Nicholas Thompson, says that the jury is still out on that.
“Technology is changing faster than the law and faster than our social norms. So the law and the courts don’t really know how to handle this. And it’s not like they’ll catch up.”
But Marino’s case could set a precedent.
“There has to be something, some sacred space in our lives where we can feel comfortable speaking our minds.”
Phoenix-Area Mother Helps Bust Ecstasy Ring
Associated PressPHOENIX (AP) — A mother’s tip to a police drug force helped put at least 10 dealers behind bars for peddling Ecstasy to teenagers and college students, police said.
The unidentified woman’s call to the Maricopa County Methamphetamine Task Force last week helped detectives find the drug ring, which was coordinated and advertised through the social networking Web site MySpace, sheriff’s deputy Lt. Steve Bailey said.
At least 10 of the dealers were arrested by Tuesday.
Bailey said the woman looked at her 17-year-old son’s Internet activity and realized he was probably purchasing a drug. Investigators said the seller’s MySpace profile included a price list and product review.
“She figured out it was Ecstacy, and put that together with how he was acting, lethargic and spacey, and called us,” he said.
Detectives said they were able to buy the drug from dealers in Mesa, north Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Fountain Hills in parks, restaurants and other public places. They said they purchased more than 200 hits in their investigation and that the sellers had a combined client list of nearly 500 area high school and college students.
A 52-year-old Auburn man was charged today with second-degree rape, accused of sexually assaulting a woman he met on MySpace, the social-networking Web site.
Richard Gordon Wheeler was arrested Wednesday in connection with the January rape in Federal Way. Wheeler, who is being held at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent on $350,000 bail, is scheduled to be arraigned May 20, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.
In January, a 48-year-old woman contacted Federal Way police and said a man she knew as “Rick” came over to her apartment to watch a movie and sexually assaulted her, charging papers say. The two had met on MySpace.
The Seattle Times does not typically name alleged victims of sexual assault.
On Jan. 24, Wheeler came to the woman’s apartment and poured her a shot of mescal. She drank it, even though she noticed the liquor in her glass was darker than the liquor he was drinking, charging papers say.
The woman told detectives her memory became foggy and the next thing she remembers Wheeler was performing a sex act on her as she lay naked on her bed, the charging papers say. She told him to stop and when he refused, she hit him and he laughed, the papers say. Wheeler allegedly then had intercourse with the woman and pulled out clumps of her hair when she resisted, according to the charging documents.
A friend took the woman to the hospital for a sexual assault exam and the nurse documented her bruises — described as “large and deep purple, red and green” — along with lacerations and abrasions to her vagina, the papers say. The woman also gave police the sheets from her bed as evidence.
After he was arrested at his Auburn residence, Wheeler claimed the sex was consensual but stated “they did not have ‘rough’ sex and could not provide an explanation for the laceration and injury to [the woman's] vagina indicated in her medical records,” the papers say.
Editor’s note: again, not a scumbag. But really, kid? Really? You know, it’s one thing to have pent up anger – hey I had it when I was your age… but I didn’t write it down and put it in a place where EVERYONE could read it. Seriously…
May 8, 2009
Upstate Teen Accused of Posting “Death List” on MySpace
By Connie LeGrand, AnchorSheriff’s Deputies say an Upstate teen posted a “death list” on his MySpace page. We’re told it was basically a list of kids whom the teen said he would like to see dead. Even though he admitted to doing it, no charges will be filed against him.
On Monday, Laurens High School Principal Wayne McIntosh says the school became aware of the 15-year-old’s posting. An incident report was filed with the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office, but it was determined that no criminal charges could be filed. News Channel asked the school district and the solicitor’s office why. “The child told us some of these kids he hadn’t talked to over a year, that they were children he knew from three or four years ago… nothing suspicious in his behavior at school or at home after talking with his mom and dad, and those are the things that are taken into consideration,“ says McIntosh. Eighth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Jerry Peace says even if the teen had posted a plan with a date and specific weapon, his hands are tied. According to Peace, “Every time something like this comes up, they call us and ask us about it. I mean, this is a dangerous situation. You don’t know what’s going to happen, and you would think that there is something that criminally we could do to address the problem, but at the present time there is not.“
The student was suspended, and according to the incident report he and his MySpace page will be monitored for the remainder of the school year.
News Channel 7 also spoke with Murray Glenn at Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s Office. He agrees with Peace, saying, “It’s a modern day issue that needs to be addressed for a code of laws that were written a long time ago.“ Glenn says when it comes to a social networking site, it’s very difficult to prove the source of a posting on the internet, so these cases are hard to prosecute. However, a text message is transmitted and much easier to track the source and recipient, so it makes it much easier to prosecute a case involving a message sent my text, phone or email. If the student had directed the message toward a school official, that would have been covered by law. However, if a gun had been found at the teen’s home, Glenn said he would likely be charged with a weapons violation, but not for the Internet threat.
