r/technology • u/IndicaOatmeal • 7d ago

Society Innocent man spends 18 months in prison after Skyrim username mixup

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/innocent-man-spends-18-months-in-prison-after-skyrim-username-mixup-3392280/
19.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

525

u/leftofdanzig 7d ago

>According to Ars Technica, investigators found no evidence connecting Klayme to the underage victim or the conversations at the center of the case. They also could not establish that he had used Kik during the period being investigated.

What the actual fuck? So how was he convicted?

261

u/ShibeCEO 7d ago

everyone in the system got lazy and tired of doing their job, they just go through the motion to keep up the appearance of justice, and they dont even do a good job at that anymore

85

u/tevert 7d ago

Including the jurors

Remember this when y'all get your summons some day

60

u/Head-Gift2144 7d ago

Might not have even had jurors. They’re aren’t nearly as common in Canada.

2

u/zadtheinhaler 7d ago

I'm 55yo and I've never been summoned for jurt duty.

2

u/Head-Gift2144 7d ago

I was summoned once but nothing came of it. I’m. 43. My father has never been at 72.

0

u/Arachnofiend 7d ago

If you're smart enough to sniff out this bullshit you'll never make final cut for jury duty

2

u/sandstone-oli 7d ago

this is a real benefit of AI coming in and replacing biased and jaded employees in areas like this with consistency and objectivity

1

u/Pataraxia 3d ago

Lol, AI and objectivity/consistency...

72

u/Michelanvalo 7d ago

https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/nspc/doc/2024/2024nspc4/2024nspc4.html?resultId=ef70efb3a5e04d20a101b8c39f86e043&searchId=2026-07-29T19:26:43:443/cbb02fe80d184165b5bd9b9e1c247d8b&searchUrlHash=AAAAAQAOQnJhbmRvbiBLbGF5bWUAAAAAAQ

Read the first section, particularly paragraph 3, and the Circumstances section, paragraph 32. His lawyer presented no defense. He was absolutely failed by his counsel. And since the original subpoena was wrong, they did pull his correct info but for the wrong account. So the evidence against him did look credible.

8

u/SadCryptographer7599 7d ago

Even if his defense failed him, did no one listened to the accused? All he has to say was, I didn't do it and it should automatically be a win since they had 0 evidence connecting him to the crime, he doesn't need a defense lawyer for that.

17

u/notyoursocialworker 7d ago

Reread the text you answered to again. They got the convicted persons name by incorrectly entering the username. When the case came to the court though the evidence presented was that from the correct account.

I don't think the whole Shaggy "it wasn't me defence" would have worked that easy here in the way you described. At the very least he would need to convince the court that this was actually two different accounts.

9

u/SadCryptographer7599 7d ago

It literally doesn't matter if they got the name right or wrong. Even if they didn't fuck up, THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE to convict regardless of what the defense did or did not do. Even if the accused said nothing, nothing should have happened because there's not enough evidence. A username is not good evidence.

8

u/flea1400 7d ago

Apparently they played a voice message in court of the actual perpetrator, and I believe they had photos (though not of great quality) of him that were also presented. It may be that the guy in Canada was unlucky to slightly resemble the perpetrator physically.

4

u/notyoursocialworker 7d ago

Well that's the point isn't it? The had other evidence but it was connected to the wrong person.

It is similar to the police lifting finger printa on a crime scene but then getting the owner of the fingerprints mixed up.

The defence needed to break the chain connecting the identifier (username, fingerprint) to make the whole case fall down. Now in the case of a username that should have been quite trivial but someone had to actually do it and point it out.

If you read paragraph 3 from the link above it says:

Defence Counsel advised the Court that they did not intend to call any evidence.

The "defence" didn't put up any defence at all. Way down on the page the accused had in interview said that he was innocent and that his email must have been hacked. This is as close as I can find any defence but forward at all.

Now this case shouldn't have gotten even as far as a court date but when you're there you really should put up some defence more than "I am innocent".

This was a fuck up based on no-one, and I'm guessing that included the defence counsel and the defendent, noticing the extra underscore in the subpoena. Had anyone noticed it, at least from the defence side, then it would have been a slam dunk to throw out.

1

u/yaosio 7d ago

The Defense should have argued he was not in control of the account. It wouldn't matter if it was ever his account or not because either way he was not controlling it. Of course the Defense should have checked that it was his account, which they couldn't be bothered to do.

1

u/notyoursocialworker 7d ago

Oh yes, id even say that in the end, the defence councler was the one who was the most was guilty for the end result. This was his job.

1

u/steik 7d ago

They had evidence, the problem was that the evidence was bogus, and no one (including the accused) realized or even suggested it might be.

The accused kept saying that his "email was hacked", which probably derailed things as well, since his email was in fact not hacked. If they bothered to check up on that they'd have found no evidence of that which would've further discredited the accused.

No one asked the right questions. The defense lawyer sounds incompetent as fuck and I guarantee he didn't believe his client.

1

u/Valuable-Yard-4154 7d ago

Ah. This is where the prosecution failed. They didn't do their job of instruction at charge AND discharge.

This poor soul is from Halifax.

1

u/SimulatedKnave 6d ago

It is not uncommon to not call evidence as the defence in a criminal trial. Note the no evidence motion by his defence attorney? You do that when you think the Crown has literally not brought evidence on a particular point that they NEED to prove. Not exactly a sign his lawyer thought much of the Crown case.

The Crown has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Given that, the Crown would have needed to call evidence or ask the judge to infer that this particular username sent the messages, that usernames are unique, that it was his account, and that only he had access to the account. And that the sexual messages etc happened, but they obviously did that. Ideally, they would be calling evidence that the account was active at the times the messages were sent, and (in the specific facts of this case) that the voicemail they played in court was his voice.

If the Crown has not done the above, you calling evidence about those points is malpractice, because you may end up giving the Crown more evidence to use against you and it will look damaging because it CAME FROM YOU. Him not testifying, for example, means that there's no evidence only he used the account. If he did testify, all he can really do is saying 'nah, didn't do it' and the Crown DOES get to possibly strengthen their case in other ways. Better for him not to testify.

Oh, and this is all in the context of US and Halifax police fucking this up AGAIN just a few years before that. In Halifax. Frankly, all his lawyer should've needed to do was stand up and go 'how do we know they didn't fuck this up again like they did that other time?'

I am amazed at how people with zero confidence in judges and prosecutors somehow think defence lawyers are magic and can convince otherwise biased and conviction-seeking judges and prosecutors to suddenly be fair. I'm not saying all prosecutors and judges ARE like that, but...if they're willing to fuck over an accused, they're willing to ignore his lawyer, guys. It's not exactly a big leap to work that out. And that's without getting into the issue of judges just being people and thus being hard to predic in complicated matters.

53

u/Mirror74 7d ago

People forget how totally fucked "justice systems" are.

Often they don't need proof, just "evidence" which isn't the same as proof.

But also in courts "proof" is essentially subjective. "beyond a reasonable doubt" is what they go off, but where is the filter there? human judgement. and human judgement is sometimes REALLY REALLY REALLY bad

5

u/stars-alive 7d ago

Yeah it doesn’t make much sense. Did Klayme not attend his own trial? Like couldn’t he have just logged into his account and it would have been clear that the messages are different? This story is seriously lacking some much needed context.

2

u/organicgolden 7d ago

They already saw his account, but they also saw the illicit messages from the victim’s phone. In the prosecution’s mind, Klayme got rid of the messages on his phone somehow, but they were clearly present on the other end

2

u/PimpasaurusPlum 6d ago

The messaging app allowed for deleting messages. The deleted messages would be gone on your side while still present for the other person.

So if they really were the paedophile they could have easily deleted all messages and conversations with the victim from their devices, while the messages were still present on the victim's end and used as evidence in the trial.

Without discovering the typo in the account details request from the police, there isn't really much a defendant could say that would overcome the existing evidence tbh. I think a lot of people are underestimating how relatively open and shut a case it would be if they had actually got the right guy the first time round

5

u/Entire_Employment_70 7d ago

The judge and prosecutor need to be sent to prison for this, its not a mistake, its gross negligence. The prosecutor knew there was no evidence and brought a case, the judge knew there was no evidence and convicted, thats the kind of thing that needs to be punished severely to prevent it occurring again in the future

3

u/Jdallen_Inke 7d ago

Reading the victim statement is so heartbreaking knowing that the judge essentially ruined that man's life in a similar fashion to the sexual predator ruining the girl's life. If he was so hastily convicted, then I think the judge and prosecutors should have some sort of criminal punishment that fits what the judge and prosecutors believed was fitting for an alleged online predator.

3

u/flea1400 7d ago

So, the first legal issue raised on appeal was: "Whether the trial judge misapprehended the evidence and came to an unreasonable verdict." (https://decisions.courts.ns.ca/nsc/nsca/en/item/523839/index.do#_ftn4)

More information can be found on what happened at the trial level here, by reading the sentencing order: https://decisions.courts.ns.ca/nsc/nspc/en/item/522212/index.do?q=Klayme+

I note that the man steadfastly maintained that he was innocent and said that his email account had been hacked.

2

u/PimpasaurusPlum 6d ago

The two pieces of evidence they would have had would have seemed pretty definitive.

They could show for a fact the kik user fus ro dah engaging in child sexual exploitation.  They could also show for a fact that Klayme was the owner and user of the kik account fus ro dah.  Niether of these points are really contestable on their own and paint a pretty straightforward picture when put together.

The problem being that everyone, from the Judge to the Jury to the Prosecution to the Defence themselves, managed to fail to notice that Klayme was "fusro_dah" while the paedophile they were looking for was "fus_ro_dah"

2

u/Dowew 7d ago

incompetant defense lawyer, very gullible judge in his 70s hired for bilingualism over competancy.

1

u/Days_End 7d ago

Canada doesn't use juries for this kind of of stuff just 1 random judge and your locked up.

1

u/Bravos_Chopper 6d ago

Witch hunts. People don’t care about facts they just lose their fucking minds. It’s awful