One Underscore, 18 Months in Prison: Username Typo Sends Innocent Man to Jail
A single missing underscore in a username request caused an innocent Canadian man to spend 18 months in prison. Brandon Klaym, a resident of Nova Scotia, was arrested, tried, and incarcerated after police confused two nearly identical Kik accounts.
The case began in 2018 in Wisconsin when investigators discovered 125 messages between a 12-year-old girl and an adult man on the messaging app Kik. The real suspect used the handle fus__ro_dah, a reference to the dragon shout from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. When police submitted a legal request to Kik, one underscore was omitted, producing the username fus_ro_dah.
Kik returned subscriber details belonging to Klaym. His IP address pointed investigators to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Local police executed a search warrant, seizing phones and laptops. No chat logs, images, or any other evidence linked to the Wisconsin case were found, and investigators could not confirm that Klaym had even logged into Kik during the relevant timeframe.
Nevertheless, Klaym was charged with internet luring of a child, transmitting explicit material to a minor, and possessing child pornography. In 2023 he was convicted; in 2024 he began serving an 18-month sentence and completed it in full.
The mistake surfaced only during preparation of an appeal. Prosecutors acknowledged that the original Kik request had targeted the wrong account. The correct username pointed to a man named Jay located in California. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal quashed the conviction, stating that Klaym was factually innocent and should never have been prosecuted.
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