Can I sue for defamation of character
My 12 year old daughter was falsely accused of stealing an iPod. The accuser sent a text message to all of her friends stating that she stole the iPod. Her mother acosted my daughter after school and verbally accused her in front of her other friends. The text message has gone viral and is affecting my daughter socially but more importantly, she is being distracted in school by all this gossip. Her accuser was instructed to send the text out by her mother. There are over 3 dozen confirmed receipts of this message. It's a mess and I don't know how to stop this mother and child from these false accusations. Can I sue for both slander and liable since she used her cell phone to send the message?