A Massachusetts woman who is charged with involuntary manslaughter because of text messages prosecutors say cajoled a teen boy into committing suicide was found guilty Friday.

Judge Lawrence Moniz, who was presiding over the non-jury trial, began deliberating Tuesday after a weeklong trial in a Bristol County courtroom.

The woman, Michelle Carter, faces a maximum 20-year prison term in a widely watched prosecution in a state that has no law forbidding people from encouraging suicide. The authorities, however, maintained that when Carter was 17, she sent her teen friend Conrad Roy text messages that “wantonly and recklessly” caused him to poison himself in a car with carbon monoxide in 2014.

Attorneys for Carter had tried to fend off the charges by saying her texts to the 18-year-old Roy were protected speech under the First Amendment. The state's top court, the Supreme Judicial Court, however, ruled against her and ordered a trial. The ruling set no line in the sand on when speech loses its constitutional protection. Instead, the court upheld the indictment for involuntary manslaughter on “the basis of words alone” and that Carter was “virtually present” at Roy's suicide.

The boy, who was battling depression and had attempted suicide in 2012, was discovered dead about 50 miles south of Boston in a Fairhaven parking lot. He had committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes while inside his truck. Carter was also on the phone with Roy for nearly an hour while he was killing himself, and she urged him to get back in the vehicle when he hesitated.

“You already made this decision, and if you don’t do it tonight you’re gonna be thinking about it all the time and stuff all the rest of your life and be miserable. You’re finally going to be happy in heaven,” one of the texts read.

Another said, “All you have to do is turn on the generator and you will be free and happy.”

In part of Judge Moniz’s reasoning, the judge said that in addition to her texts, Carter had urged the boy during a phone call to get back in the truck that was being filled with deadly poison and that she did not alert authorities that Roy was taking his life.

"Miss Carter had reason to know that Mr. Roy had followed her instruction and placed himself in the toxic environment of that truck," Moniz said from the bench. "Knowing that Mr. Roy is in the truck, knowing the condition of the truck. Knowing, or at least having the state of mind that 15 minutes must pass, Miss Carter took no actions."

The judge added, “She called no one. She did not issue a simple additional instruction: get out of the truck.”

Involuntary manslaughter in Massachusetts amounts to causing a death by behavior with a likelihood of causing harm. And that can be done via a text message, prosecutors told the judge.

"It's a new day and age, your honor, and the phones that we have now allow you to be virtually present with somebody," Katie Rayburn, an assistant district attorney, said. "People fall in love on the Internet and via text, people bully via text and the Internet, and you can encourage someone to die via text."

A sentencing date was set for August 3.