Stop me if you heard this one, a man gets 18 months in jail (and 18 months probation) for a missing underscore. After you read this story, it will make you rethink how you come up with usernames. A man in Nova Scotia was sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempting to lure a child, based in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. This man was jailed due to the fact that law enforcement charged him without mentioning his username had a missing underscore.

“Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”),” according to Ars Technica. “This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme.“

Google records showed that the email address was used to access Google services from an IP address in Canada. Then Dane County investigators turned the case over to Halifax Regional Police. Halifax police took the IP address they had been given to local Internet provider Bell Aliant. Bell connected the IP address to the physical address of their subscriber, Brandon Klayme.

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Man gets 18 Months for Missing Underscore

Halifax Regional Police executed a search warrant on Klayme’s residence and seized all his digital devices. Yet, without finding any evidence, he was still charged with three counts: Luring a person under 14 years of age by means of telecommunication, providing sexually explicit material to a child, and possession of child pornography. All of which was not found on his devices.

Yet, without this evidence, he was still found guilty. Now, some people will wonder how that happens, but if you watch American trials, you see it happens all the time. He then went to prison for 18 months. No one involved, even on the defense side, appears to have noticed the username confusion. After serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, he pushed for an appeal.

Only then during the appeal process was the discovery made by Klayme’s team. “In the latter stages of preparing my appeal arguments, it was discovered that the subpoena contained a subtle mistake that changed the course of my life,” Klayme said. “Instead of requesting details for the username “fus__ro_dah”, the subpoena requested details for the username “fus_ro_dah”. The police officer did not notice that the perpetrator’s Kik username “fus__ro_dah” contains a double underscore. This discrepancy went completely unnoticed at the trial. It was never brought to the attention of the trial judge.”

The Question is How Did This Happen

Had the case been properly investigated, the court says now, evidence “would have identified an individual whose first name is Jay whose IP address appears to be in California.” As a result, the Court of Appeal last week acquitted Klayme on all charges. His sentence (including his ongoing probation) was vacated. How did this go unnoticed? No one knows, or is willing to say. As the court puts it, “Although the information about the usernames was available at the time of the trial, there is no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed.”

As someone who has seen a lot of trials in the United States convict innocent people, this isn’t surprising. Many times, law enforcement grabs the first person and get tunnel vision. Jesus could come down from heaven and say they have the wrong guy, and they would still prosecute.

As someone who has an underscore in my online username, I will sleep with one eye open. For that day that the cops come after me because some other person has the same username with an extra underscore in it. Also, how can they say it was investigated properly when they missed something like this. They missed it, so it wasn’t investigated properly.