Two Texas Middle School Students Arrested for Creating Fake Facebook Page for Classmate
Two middle school students in Granbury, Texas, have been arrested based on accusations they created a fake Facebook page for a 12-year-old classmate that harmed her reputation.
The students, ages 12 and 13, were charged with online impersonation, a third-degree felony, report the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Student Press Law Center. The Facebook page, which featured a photo of the celebrity who looked like the classmate, was online for a month and had 63 friends before it was shut down.
Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said the fake page was damaging. “They put cuss words and made threats toward other students and basically cultivated a bad reputation for the victim,” he told the Star-Telegram.
The girls were taken to a juvenile detention facility and were still there nine days after their arrest, a police lieutenant told the Student Press Law Center. Deeds said he believed the girls had attended a hearing and gained release the next day, but he couldn’t confirm it. County and district court staffers told the publication on Thursday that no hearing has been held; the county attorney and juvenile probation director were both unavailable for comment.
