An innocent man spent 18 months in jail due to a mishap involving his Skyrim-themed username. What started as a simple oversight ultimately led a Skyrim fan to be blamed for a crime he didn’t commit.
It’s pretty common for gamers to choose usernames for chat services like Discord or gaming platforms based upon their favorite titles and characters. When a desired username is taken, people often add things like underscores or dashes to get a variation of what they originally wanted. However, that also means that messaging services can end up having multiple users with nearly identical usernames, which is where the problem began for a fan of The Elder Scrolls.
Innocent Skyrim Fan Spends Time in Prison
Per a report by Ars Technica, a man named Brandon Klayme, who had a username of “fus__ro_dah” on the Kik messaging platform, spent time in jail for something that he never did. His username, for the unfamiliar, is based upon one of the core Dragon Shouts in Skyrim. The situation that unfurled began when police in Wisconsin began looking for an adult male who had sent inappropriate photos to a 12-year-old girl on the platform. The police contacted Kik with the username they believed belonged to the guilty party, but apparently requested the records incorrectly, leaving out the extra underscore between “fus” and “ro.” In other words, the police asked for data on “fus_ro_dah” instead of “fus__ro_dah.”
Fit the 9 games into the grid.
As a result, Klayme, who lives in Canada, had his information handed over to the police. He was subsequently arrested, his electronics were seized, and he was charged with three crimes, including providing explicit material to a child, luring someone under the age of 14, and possession of child abuse material. However, in a huge oversight, no one among the police, prosecutors, or the defense team noticed that the Skyrim Dragon Language username for Klayme didn’t match that of the suspect. The trial was carried out, and Klayme was found guilty, despite the fact that his devices were clean, no connection was made to him contacting the child, and there was reportedly no proof that he had actually utilized Kik during the time that the messages were sent. He ultimately spent 18 months in jail.
The Skyrim fan insisted that he was innocent throughout, and continued to do so once he was out of prison. Klayme was preparing an appeal when the incorrect username on the subpoena that led to his information being handed over to the police was discovered. Once it was brought to light, prosecutors looked into the case, and realized the mistake. Klayme has now been acquitted on all charges, but there’s no explanation as to how such a large mistake was made. The real person of interest is reportedly someone living in California.
While it’s not the game’s nor Klayme’s fault, if either Klayme or the suspect had chosen a different username rather than relying on underscores, it’s entirely possible this never would have happened. Chances are that Klayme will never look at Skyrim and the Thu’um that inspired his username quite the same way after this.
- Released
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November 11, 2011
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol
- Developer(s)
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Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Bethesda Softworks
