Skyrim username mixup sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

For years, no one noticed a username discrepancy After spending 18 months in prison, a man named Brandon Klayme was finally declared innocent in late July by a court in Nova Scotia, Canada. Klayme was arrested in 2020 on child pornography charges and sentenced to prison in 2023 — and it all came down to a single underscore contained in a reference to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. CBC reports that, six years ago, authorities in Wisconsin became confused while attempting to find someone with the username fus__ro_dah. The suspect, who was accused of possessing child pornography and luring a child, had a Kik username that referenced the Unrelenting Force dragon shout in Bethedsa Softworks' popular fantasy RPG Skyrim. What police didn't realize in 2020 was that the suspect had two underscores in their username after the syllable "fus," not one. When authorities used a subpoena to obtain the suspect's IP address, they were led to Klayme and his nearly identical Kik name. Klayme's fus_ro_dah username, however, only had a single underscore after the syllable "fus." After a trial in 2023, Klayme was nonetheless sentenced to 18 months in prison and 18 months of probation. It was not until 202