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Mistaken Username Sent Man to Prison for 18 Months, Court Finds
The New York Times • • technology
Key Points:
- Brandon Klayme, a 30-year-old Canadian man from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, was wrongfully convicted and served 18 months in prison for child pornography offenses due to a mistaken identity involving similar usernames on the messaging app Kik.
- The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal acquitted Klayme of all charges and vacated his sentence on July 23, finding that law enforcement confused his username "fus_ro_dah" with another account "fus__ro_dah" that sent explicit material to a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin.
- The critical error involved a subtle difference in the usernames—Klayme’s had one underscore while the offending account had two—an oversight by both the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and Halifax Regional Police during their investigations.
- Both usernames referenced terms from the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but this detail was overlooked, leading to Klayme’s wrongful conviction.
