AOL Sued Over Claim Chat Room Monitor Seduced Girl

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 19-year-old Los Angeles woman has sued AOL saying that a former monitor of its "kids only" chat room seduced her online when she was a lonely teenager, persuading her to send him nude photos of herself and to engage in phone sex.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also says that Matthew Wright sent sexually explicit videos of himself and planned to drive to California to meet the girl for a weekend together on her 17th birthday.

AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news), said it fired Wright immediately after the company learned of his online relationship with the teenage girl in April 2003.

AOL immediately contacted the FBI in Oklahoma City, where Wright worked in a company call center, and in Los Angeles, said Nicholas Graham, AOL spokesman.

The company also alerted police in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, where the girl, Lesli Reed-Brennan, lived, he said.

Neither side in the lawsuit could say whether Wright, also named as a defendant, had faced criminal charges. He could not be immediately reached for comment.

AOL, the world's largest Internet service provider, has marketed itself in part on the strength of what it calls its "state-of-the-art parental controls" for families.

The lawsuit, which was filed on April 1, claims those protections failed. It seeks damages of more than $25,000 for emotional distress, negligent supervision and false advertising.

Wright, the lawsuit claims, was 23 and married when he began an online relationship with Reed-Brennan, then 15.

According to the suit, the two exchanged explicit photos and ultimately engaged in "orgasmic phone sex."

The lawsuit described Reed-Brennan as "a latchkey kid" whose parents divorced and who grew up "moving from town to town."

She "turned to the Internet as a source of continuous social contact with friends around the country," first joining AOL as a subscriber at the age of 10.

Her lawsuit accuses Wright of committing "one of the most heinous crimes in society today: to solicit sexual favors from a minor -- a minor who he was hired to protect."

AOL's Graham said that company rules prohibit chat room monitors from interacting with members online.

AOL employees are subject to criminal background checks, some take drug tests, and all face "rigorous screening and training," he said.

< First of all, it's hard to take a major corporation's side in anything, but here we must. Think about it this way: you have a million friends, they're out looking for a girlfriend/boyfriend for you, and you're resposible for everything they say and do while they're on the hunt.

That said, the particulars of the case itself are ludicrous. "One of the most heinous crimes in society today" they say... Let's take a look at what happened. Two people had fun together. Hmm. Sounds mighty heinous doesn't it? We'll say it again, society has NO LOGIC with regard to "sex crimes". There was absolutely no harm done here. The most they could have reasonably gone with was his infraction of the rule of no interaction. But they'll string him up and torture him for the worst crime that can exist instead. >