Please Stop posting pictures of me saying I was Owned

Girl whose picture spread over internet claims not to be victim.


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/US/GMA030730Wrongly_identified.html



The Wrong Girl’
Teen Feels ‘Violated’ After Being Wrongly ID’d as Kobe Bryant’s Accuser



July 30— After news broke that basketball star Kobe Bryant had been accused of rape, Katie Lovell found herself in the spotlight, depicted as the accuser. There was just one problem: they had the wrong girl.










The 18-year-old, who graduated this spring with honors from a Colorado high school, found out from a friend two weeks ago that her photo had been posted on numerous Web sites that were misidentifying her as Bryant's accuser.

Chat room users on the sites were calling her obscene names, and some sites showed bogus images in which her face was superimposed over another body, and doctored images depicted her in sexual positions with Bryant. Some sites asked users to rate Lovell's looks on a scale of one to 10.

"I was really upset by the whole situation," Lovell said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "Like many other girls my age, I am self-conscious about myself. Going on Web sites and seeing hundreds of people rate my pictures one through 10 magnified that by 10," she said.

Lovell says she wants to get the message out to Web sites that have inaccurately posted her picture and wrongly indicated she is the alleged victim.

"I want to say, take my pictures off. You've got the wrong girl," Lovell said.

Hoping It Would Go Away

Lovell's mother, Beth Matthews, is equally upset. "I was furious," Mattews said. "I'm a helpless mother and my daughter is smeared all over the Internet," she said.

Lovell said her family initially thought her photo was only on one Web site describing her as Bryant's accuser, so they shrugged it off. Both Lovell and the actual accuser are blondes who are close in age and attended Eagle County High School in a small town of just 3,700 people.

"It didn't really hit me that hard, just because it was one site," Lovell said. "So I thought, you know, we live in the same town so maybe people just mix up the girls or whatever. But, after a couple of days it wasn't just on one site anymore," Lovell said.

The identity of the real Bryant accuser has not been released by most news organizations, including ABCNEWS, because they do not generally identify accusers in sexual assault cases.

But interest in the accuser is high, and there has been rampant speculation about her on some Web sites.

Lovell said it took just a few days for her picture to spread to dozens of other sites.

Bryant is accused of raping a 19-year-old Eagle woman on June 30 at the hotel where the woman worked. Bryant, who is married and the father of a young child, has denied the charge, saying he is guilty only of adultery.

Considering Action Against the Web Sites

Lovell, a former prom queen who made excellent grades in school and was active in community service and sports, found herself being labeled a w**** by people who never even met her. One of her prom pictures appeared on several Internet sites with nasty comments posted around it.

Lovell's mother wrote e-mails to the various Web sites, saying that she is the young woman's mother and that they had the wrong person. Though most took Lovell's name and photo down, and some even explained the mistake online, others refused. Matthews has since hired an attorney.

"This is a travesty," said attorney Sienna LaRene. "She was violated in the worst ways," she said.

LaRene said she continuing to investigate the case, but on the face of it, she says it looks as if the Web sites were negligent. If so, the family may pursue legal options.

Lawsuits on material sent over the Internet is new legal territory, and few cases have made it to judgment. But LaRene says she is determined to try to get Lovell's case heard.

"In this country, America, where there's a wrong, there's a remedy," LaRene said. "If the remedy doesn't exist in law now, it will be created because in this country, we find remedies for wrong."