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20-Year-Old Sentenced to 45 Days for Cyberbullying

By Brendan McKenna

This week, 20 year-old Matthew Riskin Bean was sentenced to 45 days for cyberbullying, following his involvement with a group of anonymous Web users who tried to induce a teen to commit suicide. The victim in this case posted nude pictures of himself on the Internet when he was 12 or 13. This wasn?t the smartest thing to do, but then again, 12- and 13 year-olds aren?t always known for being especially savvy. A few years later, Bean discovered comments about the photo on an online imageboard, and he e-mailed the images to the teenager?s school, claiming to be a ?concerned mother? of another boy at the school, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. U.S. District Judge Anita Brody described Bean?s crime as ?extremely malicious? and said, ?You have to be blind to what's going on in this world not to know the effect of cyberbullying on present-day society." As the ABA Journal notes, Bean could have been sentenced to five years in prison if had been charged with distributing child pornography. Instead, he got off easy with only a 45-day sentence and five years of probation. Even so, a few minutes of bad decisions could haunt Bean for the...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on January 20, 2011 (boomark / email).