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Facepalm: Most people choosing a username would never imagine that someone with an almost identical handle – differing by just one character – was engaged in illegal activity, let alone soliciting a minor. This exact situation is what landed a Nova Scotia resident in prison for over a year for a crime committed by someone thousands of miles away in another country.
A Halifax man was recently cleared of all charges after spending a year and a half behind bars because an investigative error led to his conviction for possessing child sexual abuse material. The mix-up occurred because the police missed a single underscore while investigating a suspect's username.
According to court documents, in 2018, investigators discovered that a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin had been exchanging explicit messages and photos and participating in video chats with a man identified under the username "fus__roh_da" (after the shout from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) on the messaging platform Kik. However, when Wisconsin police requested the man's email address from Kik, they received an email address associated with the username "fus_roh_da" with one underscore between "fus" and "roh" instead of two.
