Probation officers have recomended that Lori Drew be given probation and a $5,000 fine in the nation's first cyberbullying case, which arose from a MySpace hoax that ended with a teenage girl committing suicide.

The independent office made the recommendation in a sealed pre-sentencing report. It came to light Sunday when Drew's defense attorney, H. Dean Steward, filed a response. Drew, 48, was convicted of three misdemeanors for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, after a jury found she'd violated MySpace's terms of service when she joined with her daughter and another teen friend to create a fake profile to harass 13-year-old Megan Meier, who then hanged herself. The jury deadlocked on a fourth felony conspiracy charge.

Steward told the court Sunday that the defense agrees with the probation recommendation, but said the fine "is not in line with Ms. Drew's finances. Ms. Drew was forced, by the circumstances of this case, to close her nine year old business in November of 2007 and so has been without her former business income for the past 18 months."

He goes on to write in his filing (.pdf) that, "Ms. Drew is a homemaker, supported by the income of her husband. The Drew's [sic] are raising two children on Mr. Drew's salary, which does not cover expenses each month . . . paying the recommended fine would be most difficult."

U.S. District Judge George Wu is scheduled to sentence Drew on May 18th, though before he does this, he still has to rule on a motion for direct acquittal that Drew's lawyer filed after the prosecution rested its case.

Steward asked Wu for a judgment of acquittal based on the defense’s view that the prosecution failed to prove that Drew knew the MySpace terms of service existed, and that she knew what they said and intentionally violated them. Wu decided to postpone ruling on the motion – perhaps to see if the jurors would acquit Drew on their own – and still has not ruled on it.

Steward still hopes that Wu will acquit his client, but in the absence of this he asked the court to impose a probation without the fine. He also wrote that the defense would object to Meier's family or friends speaking at the sentencing hearing, since the victim in the case was MySpace, and not Meier.

He also takes issue with a number of assertions in the pre-sentencing report, writing that Drew didn't know until after Meier's death that she had suffered from depression prior to committing suicide. He included a one-page transcript of a recorded call (.pdf) between Lori Drew and Tina Meier, Megan's mother. In the conversation, Meier tried to get Drew to admit that she knew about Megan's depression, but Drew maintains she didn't know.

Steward insists that Drew did not create the fake MySpace account, nor was she involved in creating the account. She merely glanced at the profile page on a computer screen after another teen had created it. He writes that Drew did not "approve" the profile.

Finally, he mentions a mitigating factor that probation officers raised in their pre-sentencing report – that Drew had been widely protrayed as a pariah since the case became public. He writes that the Drew family had a brick thrown through their window, along with numerous instances of vandalism on their property, and that neighbors harassed her viciously and non-stop with threats of serious harm until the Drews moved from the community.

UPDATE: Threat Level reached Steward and Tina Meier by phone to ask them about Steward's request that Meier not be allowed to speak at the sentencing.

Asked if Meier wasn't entitled to closure through speaking at the hearing, Steward said, "Closure is not part of the federal victims statutes.

"In a sense, they're entitled to their closure," he continued. "But Tina has done it by submitting a 21-page letter to the court. She also had her day on the witness stand. I have a great deal of admiration and respect for her, but enough is enough. It was not a case about the death [of Megan Meier]. MySpace was the victim under the fraud statute, and if MySpace wants to bring people into the hearing to speak, fine. But under the law, she is not a victim."

Meier, who submitted a lengthy and sealed letter to the judge as an addendum to the pre-sentencing report from probation officers, said she's not surprised by Steward's request.

"Still, I think it's a tad ludicrous to ask for that," she added. "He certainly wants to keep publicity down on it, but believe me, I will be there at the hearing and unless I'm absolutely stricken from saying a word, I will make sure my piece has been said. It makes no difference to me whether it's inside the court or outside. That, I think is my right. The victim was my daughter."

Asked how she feels about the sentence recommended by the probation officers, Meier said that prosecutors would soon be filing their response to the pre-sentencing report and that she hopes Judge Wu "realizes the significance that people are going through this daily. It's not just children but adults are going through these types of situations, and it can be devastating. Just giving somebody a small little smack on the wrist and a fine shows nothing.

"[With regard to] Lori Drew, I could care less what happens to that woman. But for other people that are going through this, they need to know that the court systems are going to be behind them and back them when these kinds of things happen."

*Photo: Lori Drew and her daughter, Sarah, outside the U.S. District Courthouse in Los Angeles/AP *