Athena
July 22nd, 2008, 01:27 PM
For some time now, sites like MySpace and Facebook have been used by organizations for everything from determining employment viability to foiling school bombing plots. Increasingly, however, they've become a useful tool in yet another field - Criminal prosecution.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'd be inclined to agree. This is nothing new to folks here at D'D; we commonly scour MySpace pages to get an impression of alleged criminals and their associates. It doesn't matter how many buddies stop by to tell us what a great person neglectful parents X is and how we don't know the whole story, if we've got access to pictures depicting the person in question as less than tasteful, that's really all we need to know.
This was the case with Joshua Lipton, a 20 year old Rhode Island boy who, while driving drunk, caused a crash that severely injured a 20 year old woman, leaving her hospitalized for weeks. I'm sure Mr. Lipton collected all sorts of character statements from family and friends who asserted that he was a good kid who was momentarily impared by bad judgment. He just made a mistake, right?
Problem is, none of that means a goddamn thing in light of pictures like this, taken at a Halloween party he attended while out on bail:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/CRIME/07/18/facebook.evidence.ap/art.jailbird.jpg
Yep, the kid may as well have "Unrepentant Douchebag" jail-tatted on his retarded tongue. I mean, seriously, not only does this picture show him partying it up, presumably drunk, while his victim lies recovering in the hospital, he mocks his potential punishment by donning a jail bird costume.
Idiot.
Incidentally, the prosecutor and the judge agreed. While Mr. Lipton might have been granted probation (which is bullshit in and of itself, but I digress), the judge instead thought it best to give this brat 2 years worth of a time out.
This CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/18/facebook.evidence.ap/index.html) outlines a few other stories of people retarded enough to implicate themselves via social networking sites after committing a crime. It's worth a read. I had a chuckle.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'd be inclined to agree. This is nothing new to folks here at D'D; we commonly scour MySpace pages to get an impression of alleged criminals and their associates. It doesn't matter how many buddies stop by to tell us what a great person neglectful parents X is and how we don't know the whole story, if we've got access to pictures depicting the person in question as less than tasteful, that's really all we need to know.
This was the case with Joshua Lipton, a 20 year old Rhode Island boy who, while driving drunk, caused a crash that severely injured a 20 year old woman, leaving her hospitalized for weeks. I'm sure Mr. Lipton collected all sorts of character statements from family and friends who asserted that he was a good kid who was momentarily impared by bad judgment. He just made a mistake, right?
Problem is, none of that means a goddamn thing in light of pictures like this, taken at a Halloween party he attended while out on bail:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/CRIME/07/18/facebook.evidence.ap/art.jailbird.jpg
Yep, the kid may as well have "Unrepentant Douchebag" jail-tatted on his retarded tongue. I mean, seriously, not only does this picture show him partying it up, presumably drunk, while his victim lies recovering in the hospital, he mocks his potential punishment by donning a jail bird costume.
Idiot.
Incidentally, the prosecutor and the judge agreed. While Mr. Lipton might have been granted probation (which is bullshit in and of itself, but I digress), the judge instead thought it best to give this brat 2 years worth of a time out.
This CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/18/facebook.evidence.ap/index.html) outlines a few other stories of people retarded enough to implicate themselves via social networking sites after committing a crime. It's worth a read. I had a chuckle.