Facebook Status Update Springs a Teen From the Clink

Rodney Bradford can thank Facebook for making him a free man.

A run of the mill status update proclaiming the words "Where My IHOP?" was the key to exonerating the 19-year-old Brooklyn teen from felony robbery charges and getting him out of the maximum-security prison where he was held for nearly two weeks.

Why? Because Bradford posted that message on Oct. 17, exactly one minute before police claimed he held up two men in Brooklyn's Farragut Houses, where he lives. You see, the status update was sent from a computer at Bradford's dad's house in Harlem, as he and other witnesses told police all along, and it takes a lot longer than 60 seconds to get from Harlem to Brooklyn. He was released once Facebook officials confirmed his alibi.

"They had me on Rikers Island for 12 days. It was really miserable," Bradford told The New York Post. "If it wasn't for Facebook I'd still be on Riker's Island."

His exuberant step-mom, Ernestine Bradford, agreed. "Facebook saved my son. Normally, we yell at our kids, 'Oh, you're on the computer!" It's completely different. If it wasn't for Facebook, my son wouldn't be here."

So score one for Facebook, as legal experts believe this is the first time the social networking site has been used so directly in the name of justice.

"This is the first case that I'm aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence," John G. Browning Dallas attorney who studies social networking and the law told The New York Times. "We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become."

So remember, next time you post a mundane Facebook message, it just might be your strongest defense.

Photo courtesy of Facebook via Wikimedia Commons.