Ready to 
Facebook status about pancakes used as alibi
Jacqueline DiOrio
November 12, 2009 10:30 AM ET in Tech
We’ve previously seen Facebook being used to catch criminals, but it hadn’t been used to exonerate them. Now, a 19-year-old from New York named Rodney Bradford is thanking his lucky stars that he decided to write a Facebook status in slang about liking pancakes.
Bradford was arrested on Sunday, October 18 for mugging two men at gun point on the previous day. He protested that he had been at his father’s at the time, and his attorney submitted his Facebook status, created during the time of the robbery, as evidence of his innocence.
The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to determine what time the status had been created, and Facebook confirmed that it had been made at Bradford’s father’s house in Harlem. The DA subsequently decided that the status supported Bradford’s alibi, and charges against him have been dropped.
This sets an interesting precedent, given that anyone with a person’s username and password can log into Facebook from anywhere. Indeed, no released information confirms that the DA was able to positively identify Bradford as the author of the status, only that it was created from his father’s house at the time of the robbery.
Bradford is happy with the results of the case saying, “I used to really like [pancakes], now I love ‘em.”
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