Two middle school girls from Texas were arrested and charged with third-degree felonies for cyber bullying and online impersonation on Facebook. The Hood County Sheriff’s Office maintains the crime committed by the middle school age girls is tantamount to identity theft and bullying, Dallas-Forth Worth CBS News station reports. The pair of Granbury, Texas middle school girls made the fake Facebook page to impersonate another 12-year-old girl from their school. The two girls allegedly bullied other classmates and harmed the reputation of the middle school girl they were pretending to be Facebook.
The Blaze reports that when the mother of the identity theft victim saw the Facebook profile it contained “a whole bunch of vulgar things” and “threats” to other classmates. The unnamed victim’s mother maintains she had not given her daughter permission to create a Facebook page.
Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds told the Dallas-Fort Worth CBS News station the fictitious Facebook page had 63 followers and frequent status updates and comments. After investigating the alleged online bullying, his investigators discovered that a pair of middle school girls were the likely culprits in the Facebook identity theft. Sheriff Deeds stated the identity theft was not a part of a scheme for financial gain as is most commonly associated with such a crime, but for the sole purpose of hurting another person.
The Texas middle school girls arrested for the online bullying were taken to the Granbury Regional Juvenile Detention Center after their arrest. The Facebook identity theft victim’s mother reported the crime to the local sheriff’s office in June after her daughter was threatened at school for comments she allegedly made on the Facebook page. The Hood County middle school girl who allegedly created the Facebook page to bully the victim posted a photo of a child actress who closely resembled their classmate as a profile image.
While the fake Facebook page allegedly created by the pair of Texas middle school girls is still visible, it now features the image of a Hood County Sheriff’s shield and a message stating the Facebook page is fictitious and has been seized by the law enforcement office.