Brandon Klayme’s conviction was overturned by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal after judges found that police built a child-luring case on the wrong Kik account, a mistake caused by a single missing underscore in a username.
The court acquitted Klayme of all charges and vacated his sentence, including probation. Klayme had already served an 18-month prison term after being convicted at trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024. The appeal court wrote that “Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.”
The case started in 2018 in Dane County, Wisconsin, after the mother of a 12-year-old girl found an inappropriate photo of an adult male on the child’s phone and contacted police. The Dane County Sheriff’s Department took the phone and ran a forensic search. According to the court record, investigators found 125 Kik messages between the girl and a user named “fus__ro_dah,” with two underscores after “fus.”
Why was Brandon Klayme’s conviction overturned?
The conviction was overturned because investigators asked Kik for records on “fus_ro_dah,” with one underscore after “fus,” rather than the account identified in the forensic report, “fus__ro_dah.” Kik returned information tied to Klayme’s email address, sending the investigation to the wrong person.
That one-character transcription error did the work of probable cause. Google records showed the email account had accessed services from a Canadian IP address, according to the court. Dane County investigators passed the matter to Halifax Regional Police, who took the IP address to Bell Aliant. The internet provider connected it to Klayme’s physical address.
Halifax police then obtained a warrant and searched devices from Klayme’s bedroom, including phones and laptops. The search found no evidence tying him to the Wisconsin girl, no intimate images, and no material relevant to the alleged offenses, according to the appeal decision. Police confirmed Klayme had a Kik account, but could not show he used the service during the period under investigation.
Klayme was nevertheless charged with three offenses:
- Luring a person under 14 by telecommunication
- Providing sexually explicit material to a child
- Possession of child pornography
The username mismatch was not raised at trial. The appeal court said the information was available then, but there was “no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed.” That is a polite judicial way of saying the file contained the answer, and the system still drove past it.
What did prosecutors do after the error was found?
Klayme continued challenging the conviction after his release. During late-stage appeal preparation, his team found the subpoena discrepancy. In an affidavit summarized by the court, Klayme said the officer had not noticed that the perpetrator’s Kik name used a double underscore and that the issue had not been brought to the trial judge.
After the mistake was identified, prosecutors reviewed the case again and agreed the appeal should be allowed. The Court of Appeal said a proper investigation would have pointed to a different person, an individual whose first name is Jay and whose IP address appears to be in California.
The ruling leaves Klayme acquitted after years of criminal proceedings that began with a Skyrim-themed username and a subpoena typo. The court’s decision does not explain why police, prosecutors, or defense counsel failed to catch the underscore problem before conviction.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
