A Missouri woman who posed as a 16-year-old boy on MySpace.com to woo and then rebuff a troubled teenage girl who later committed suicide was found guilty Wednesday of three misdemeanor charges, but no felonies, by a federal jury. The jury rejected felony charges against Lori Drew of accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress. Drew, 49, of O’Fallon, Mo., allegedly posed as the boy to harass a former friend of her daughter’s. The jury did, however, find her guilty of three misdemeanor counts of violating the terms of service with MySpace.

The verdict in the nationally watched cyber-bullying case comes nearly two years after the death of Megan Meier, 13, who is referred to in court documents as “M.T.M.” Megan hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom closet within an hour of being rejected by “Josh Evans,” the fictitious identity that Drew assumed on the popular networking Web site. During the five-day trial, they portrayed Drew as masterminding a scheme to humiliate Megan even though she knew that the girl — once her daughter’s best friend — had depression. Drew wanted to know whether Megan was spreading rumors about her daughter, prosecutors argued, and bragged about the hoax. Four weeks into the exchanges, Josh broke off contact with Megan, punctuated, her father said, by a message that “the world would be a better place without” her. Within an hour of receiving it, Megan committed suicide.