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.
Fattack
Whether the police or Kik misspelled the username remains unclear, but a single missing underscore is likely an easily missed detail, especially if the information was entered manually. Unfortunately for Brandon Klayme, the error would have life-changing consequences.
The misspelled username led investigators to Klayme's Google account, after which Google provided them with his IP address. In 2021, Halifax authorities searched Klayme's home and seized several of his electronic devices.
Despite finding no evidence linking him to the inappropriate chats, a Nova Scotia court convicted Klayme of child luring, making sexually explicit material available to a child, and possession of CSAM in 2023. In 2024, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 18 months of probation. Although police had obtained an image of the suspect from the chats and a physical description from the victim, CBC News reports that they could not extensively interview the girl, who was receiving treatment for depression.
Klayme's lawyers did not discover the mix-up until spring of 2026, after he had already spent over a year in jail. The legal team claims that tracing the correct username would have likely led police to a California-based user.
The case highlights not only the dangers of clerical errors, but also the amount of identifying information that Google and social media companies can provide to authorities.
A missing underscore in a username sent an innocent man to prison for 18 months
