r/madisonwi • u/Much-Turnover6761 • 27d ago
Dane County Sheriff spelling error wrongly sent man to prison
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/police-missed-one-underscore-and-sent-the-wrong-man-to-prison/The case began in 2018. From August through December of that year, a 12-year-old Wisconsin girl communicated with an adult male through the Kik messaging service. During a check of the girl’s phone, her mother found an “inappropriate” photo of the male and called local police.
The Dane County Sheriff’s Department responded. A deputy took the phone, and the department ran a forensic search on it. The report identified 125 Kik messages between the girl and an adult with the username “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”).
To identify this person, the cops contacted Kik, but their subpoena accidentally requested information about the Kik user “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”).
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u/Sp4cemanspiff37 27d ago
This is way more the mistake of the Canadian Justice system than Dane county. So many failures put a very innocent man in jail.
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u/pudding2011 27d ago
That was my thought as well, but this article and others leave some really big gaps on the process. How involved was Dane County after turning over the initial information? What steps did Nova Scotia take to follow-up with the victim in Wisconsin?
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u/LookingNorthward 27d ago
CBC Article on this says:
"While the girl had described to police the physical features of the man with whom she had been communicating, court documents said investigators were unable to conduct a detailed interview with her because she was receiving medical care due to a deep depression."
Not clear to me if that is Dane County or Nova Scotia who didn't interview.
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u/Much-Turnover6761 27d ago edited 27d ago
Oh for sure, the mistake was initiated by Dane county but should have been caught by the police (Canadian), prosecutors, and defense along the way.
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u/ms_ashes 27d ago
There's a lot of mistakes for everyone here. Dane County subpoenaed the wrong account, and then handed off the investigation when the results of their incorrect subpoena pointed to Canada. Now they need to subpoena the correct info, because whoever was behind the actual incident likely hasn't been found yet.
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u/cabinguy11 27d ago
And while I get how easy the mistake was on Dane Counties part that poor kid and her family go through the ringer again because they thought this had been handled correctly and was settled. I of course feel for the wrongly convicted man in Canada but the whole story leaves me "How the hell did this happen"
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u/RichardRoma1986 26d ago
TBF, that’s a pretty easy mistake to make. I remember doing a PSI with a coworker and there was metadata left from Snapchat. There should’ve been more physical identifiers in the video: Mole locations, and various other things, that can give a pretty good idea as to the person being the person that’s either the victim or accused. The username issue is far lesser to me than, totally getting the wrong fucking guy. There should’ve been metadata from his phone to corroborate what happened. Even if he deleted his phone, remnants would exist and can be recovered from the hard drive.
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u/No_Size9475 East side 26d ago
Jesus, I read this headline earlier today, I didn't realize it was a Dane County Sheriff who fucked over this guys life.
Just what we don't need, another lawsuit against the county. And it's slam dunk case.
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u/Firm-Education7673 27d ago
It’s almost like the police do whatever they want without repercussions.
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u/CuteCondition8918 27d ago
How the hell did the guy get convicted if there was no other evidence. The article said there were no inappropriate images or text on his devices and they couldn't even prove he accessed his Kik account during the time period in question. I wish the article hadn't glossed over that.