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That bogus social networking profile can send you to jail

By Evan Brown

Clear v. Superior Court, 2010 WL 2029016 (Cal.App. 4 Dist. May 24, 2010)

The California Court of Appeal has held that a man who set up a bogus MySpace profile of his former church pastor can stand trial for criminal “personation.”

The defendant’s alleged conduct that might really put him on the hook is what he did after setting up the profile: he posted content that suggested the pastor used drugs and was gay. Because this could have resulted in the pastor losing his job, the court found the statute prohibiting personation of another might have been violated (that question will be resolved at trial unless there’s a plea deal).

The criminal personation statute (Penal Code Sec. 529) has an intriguing framework for liability. Apparently it’s not enough just to say you’re someone else. To be liable you’ve got to actually do something while assuming that persona that would subject your — to some kind of legal harm.

For example, just saying to the cops that you’re someone else, that you have that persons birthday and even responding affirmatively to whether you have their middle name apparently isn’t enough to violate the statute. People v. Cole, 23 Cal.App.4th 1672 (1994).

But using your sister’s name when you get a traffic ticket and also forging her signature on the citation isn’t allowed. People v. Chardon, 77 Cal.App.4th 205 (1999).

All the reason not to set up that Facebook profile of your boss and populate it with tales of crystal meth and kiddie porn.

Image by Balakov under this Creative Commons license.

Full post as published by InternetCases.com on May 29, 2010 (boomark / email).