NORTHAMPTON - The much-publicized Jan. 14 suicide of Phoebe Prince and resulting charges against six high school students spawned another legal action today, when a Holyoke lawyer filed a lawsuit seeking $750,000 in damages against Cody M. Nallett of Chicopee, alleging libel and "injurious falsehood."

South Hadley resident Laurie Narey doesn't have any children in the town's public schools or any connection to South Hadley High School. Yet she was linked to the tragic suicide when postings on multiple Internet sites, including Facebook, falsely claimed she was the mother of one of the teens later charged with bullying and criminal harassment in connection to events leading up to Prince's death.

Prince was 15 and in her first year at South Hadley High School when she committed suicide by hanging herself in her Newton Street home. Subsequently, a criminal investigation by the Northwestern district attorney's office resulted in charges against six high school students, alleging they verbally taunted her and physically threatened her for months before she killed herself.

Among the students charged was Kayla Narey, 17, who has denied charges of criminal harassment, disturbing a school assembly, and civil rights violation resulting in bodily injury.

The suit, filed in Hampshire Superior Court today by Holyoke attorney Thomas N. Wilson, alleges that Nallett posted incorrect information on Facebook and other places stating that Laurie Narey was Kayla Narey's mother.

The suit maintains that in the days following Prince's suicide, her death and speculation about what led to it became a topic of discussion on many Internet sites.

"Almost immediately the sentiment by the posters on these sites was that one particular group of girls dubbed #the mean girls' who were South Hadley High students bullied Miss Prince into committing suicide," the six-page complaint alleges. "The other sentiment was that these girls should be bullied as well. It was suggested that these girls' families should be harassed."

The suit alleges that Nallett claimed she had direct information about the Prince suicide and the factors leading up to it, and she posted on Facebook and other Web sites, urging people to harass Laurie Narey, falsely claiming that she was Kayla Narey's mother. "So when ya'll start calling make sure to say hi," she posted, also suggesting people call her at 2 a.m.

In a telephone interview today, Wilson said his client was forced to leave her home for weeks because she received so many threatening emails both at home and at work. The suit states that the police began patrolling near her home and that she resorted to buying a security system for her home because of the kind of harassment she endured, including receiving "hundreds of empty boxes" sent anonymously through the mail.

Wilson's suit seeks compensation from Nallett, who Wilson said is not a South Hadley student, but a Holyoke Community College student, alleging that she published false and defamatory information, that she "intended this disparagement to be communicated to untold numbers of persons via the Internet," and that she intended harm to come to Narey.

"Defendant acted in reckless disregard of the truth of the information that she published," the suit states.

Efforts to reach Nallett for comment were unsuccessful. A listing for a Nallett at her address in Chicopee included a non-published telephone number.

Facebook also played a role in the events leading to the suicide of Prince, authorities allege, because that is one of the places where her alleged tormentors bullied her.