February 14, 2008
Myspace Friend Request Could Mean Jail Time
A 16-year-old Staten Island girl faces up to a year in jail for sending Myspace friend requests to three people. Melissa Fernino is charged with second-degree criminal contempt, a misdemeanor, because she violated a Family Court order of protection that barred her from contacting a 43-year-old woman and her two adolescent daughters.
The court order, prompted by Ferino's history of "extremely violent threats," has something to do with a soured relationship between Fernino’s father and Sandra DelGrosso. If the charges against Fernino are upheld, it will be a landmark decision that could set a national precedent for what constitutes violating an order of protection on the Internet.
Over the summer Fernino – after the orders of protection were issued – sent three friend requests to DelGrosso and her two daughters. On Myspace, a “friend request” does not contain any personalized greeting, it's merely an automatic request to be “added” to a list of friends on one’s Myspace profile. (What seems to be Fernino’s Myspace profile is at right.)
The judge is allowing the case against Fernino to move forward, ruling that “the MySpace friend requests fall within the court's mandate that, ‘(Ms. Fernino) shall have 'no contact' with (the alleged victims).’” The Staten Island DA's office said, "We're grateful that the judge recognized our contention that these MySpace.com e-mails allegedly sent by Fernino constituted a violation of the order of protection."
When looking for information about "Sandra DelGrosso" online, this 2002 NY Times article came up. At that time, a Sandra DelGrosso of Staten Island, then 37, was charged with taking photos of “eight children, ages 6 to 16, in various stages of undress, drinking alcohol and performing sex acts on one another"; her two daughters, then ages 6 and 9, were allegedly depicted in the photos.
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Someone preying on a sexual predator? God, I love the Internet.
Anyone should be arrested for using myspace. Its horrible.
While this may be the first legal decision regarding MySpace friend requests, it's not really an extraordinary decision. Obviously sending a friend request is an attempt to make contact and a violation of the protection order. No real story here, imo.
Since we are talking about a 16 year old minor, should her face and name even be a matter of public record? Just wondering.
This is highly debatable, I have an order of protection on someone and if they contact me in anyway, they have violated it. Trying to friend request someone on MySpace is reaching out to someone however it redefines the meaning of contact.
Either way I was recently a victim of someone and their petty MySpace games trying to victimize herself to make me look bad like always, the truth comes out especially on such a drama filled site as MySpace. Just remember, it's everyone's space and a space for everyone's drama and a court is not going to take pettiness seriously unless it involves death threats.
On another note, 16 year old girls need to stop bullying and bitching on MySpace and bring back the classic slap fight.
thanx for the add!!!!
Orders of protection protect against unwanted email so it logically follows that a Myspace friend request would also be a violation. It's highly unlikely that a court would go the other way.
And I second Bouncing Soul's comment that "16 year old girls need to stop bullying and bitching on MySpace and bring back the classic slap fight."
Interesting to see if the court convicts in a case like this (which I do believe constitutes breaking a Restraining Order). There are countless annoying sites that if you click on a wrong button, it sends "friend requests" to everyone in your email address book. Therefore, if you neglect to erase someone's email address (gmail doesn't seem to let me erase a contact if I have email from them in my inbox) and click on one of these sites, it might automatically violate your restraining order?
I keep getting emails saying "so-and-so has added you as a friend on facebook" which is interesting because I do not have a facebook account, so how can they add me as a friend?
I also get a lot of "Disregard that previous email..." emails from friends saying "it automatically sent requests to everyone in my address book..."
(people, please stop clicking on retarded sites)
I think it would be hard to prove (legally) the authenticity of one person's actions through a username on MySpace. She might have shared her password with someone else, or her password could have been guessed or hacked, or the MySpace code could have even caused this error. Sure, these are all unlikely, but if there were any discussions that one of the first two scenarios happened, I'd say there's a lack of evidence for this case. They could even trace the IP's back to her house, but if she has siblings or friends, they would also have access to that computer.
Unless MySpace uses authentication more complex and trusted than passwords (ex: fingerprints), there's no way to prove that Melissa Fernino sent those messages.
MySpace is such a trailer park
Just another day on Staten Island.
Myspace is for the losers trying to act all "cool" and "popular".
Why isn't Sandra DelGrosso in jail? Those are serious charges which carry a long jail term.
Places like myspace and craigslist are becoming predator central. Not only that, myspace is a waste of time.
http://blog.bizzflip.com/bizzflipcom/2008/01/myspace-or-time.html
Places like myspace and craigslist are becoming predator central. Not only that, myspace is a waste of time.
http://blog.bizzflip.com/bizzflipcom/2008/01/myspace-or-time.html
Love the myspace pose.