A 30‑year‑old Canadian man from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, was wrongly sent to prison for 18 months after a 2023 conviction for child sexual‑abuse‑image offenses. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal acquitted Brandon Klayme of all charges on July 23 and set aside his sentence.
The court found that law‑enforcement officers confused Mr. Klayme’s Kik username, “fus_ro_dah,” with a different account that had sent sexually explicit messages in 2018 to a 12‑year‑old girl in Madison, Wisconsin. The discrepancy was a single extra underscore: the offending username was “fus__ro_dah,” containing two underscores between “fus” and “ro.”
Both names are derived from the dragon language of the video game *The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim* and roughly translate to “force, balance and push.”
When the Dane County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin first investigated the messages, it failed to notice the subtle variation. The same oversight was made by Halifax Regional Police, who later took over the case in Nova Scotia.
In February 2020, Halifax police executed a search warrant at Mr. Klayme’s parents’ home, where he was living and working at his family’s pizzeria. They seized all of his electronic devices, including phones and laptops, according to his affidavit.
Mr. Klayme, who was on probation after completing his prison term at the time of the acquittal, highlighted the error in an affidavit filed for his appeal in May. He stated that he had not used his Kik account since late 2012, roughly six years before the victim received the sexually explicit messages.
“In the latter stages of preparing my appeal arguments, it was discovered that the subpoena contained a subtle mistake that changed the course of my life,” he wrote. “The police officer did not notice that the perpetrator’s Kik username ‘fus__ro_dah’ contains a double underscore. This discrepancy went completely unnoticed at the trial. It was never brought to the attention of the trial judge.”
Appellate attorney Zeb Brown said he noticed the error while reviewing the trial evidence. “We couldn’t figure out how Mr. Klayme’s account came into it,” Mr. Brown added. “So we were taking a closer look at the trial evidence and the discrepancy was readily apparent in the printouts of the social media messages.”
Following a trial in April 2023, a judge convicted Mr. Klayme of making sexually explicit material available to a child, child luring, and possession of child sexual‑abuse imagery. He was sentenced in January 2024 to 18 months in prison, which he served before the appeal court granted relief. His lawyer said Mr. Klayme is currently exploring options for seeking damages in a civil suit.
In overturning the conviction, the appellate judges said investigators provided Kik with the wrong username when requesting account information. The Kik account that sent the messages to the girl belonged to a different individual in California, according to the ruling.
“He should never have been charged, let alone convicted,” the judges wrote.
It remains unclear whether authorities are pursuing the actual sender of the messages. Melissa Noonan, a spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service, acknowledged the flawed conviction in a statement. “We recognize the seriousness of the outcome for Mr. Klayme,” she said, adding that prosecutors provided the court with the mistaken evidence, supported its admission as fresh evidence, conceded that the appeal should be allowed, and asked the court to enter an acquittal.
In a separate statement, the Halifax Regional Police said the investigation was initiated by a Wisconsin agency and later supported by local police. “In light of the court’s recent decision, we are committed to reviewing this file and our role in the outcome,” the department said.
Kik did not respond to a request for comment regarding its involvement.
A spokeswoman for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office said the agency had no record of the case.
