Facebook Is Now Offering Alibis

We’ve all read about bonehead criminals getting caught because of social networks, or people’s online lives coming back to haunt them in divorce proceedings—but can Facebook actually help you in court? The answer is yes, at least for one New York teen, who is free after he provided probably the first ever Facebook alibi. Rodney Bradford was picked up for a robbery in October. Unh-uh, he said. Look at my status update.

Sure enough, he was logged on to Facebook in a different borough typing something about pancakes—street slang, the New York Times adds, helpfully—at exactly the time the robbery was committed. His lawyer argued the point and got the charges dropped. Hold on, you say. Couldn’t someone else have logged in with his info to manufacture an alibi? “This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this,” his lawyer counters. “He is not Dr. Evil.” (More Facebook stories.)