Gothamist: City Pays $25K to Innocent Man Nabbed in Email Snafu

NannyState

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:33:47 -0500

"I could spank you with a vintage [copy] of Finigan's [sic] Wake." "Atlas Shrugged".

jaycjay

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:25:03 -0500

"If that note was deemed threatening, shouldn't they have picked up the actual sender by now?" Really, now that what actually happened is known it's a lot less threatening than it would have appeared when she believed it was sent by someone she knew. Now it's obvious that it as just some random person responding to a wrongly-directed message; someone who doesn't even know who she is and was pretending to be the person who was supposed to get it. Creepy, maybe, but as much as it would be coming from someone she used to work with.

Spiritof76

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:52:38 -0500

His lawyer later excoriated the police for having "absolutely no competence when it comes to understanding email or the Internet." You mean NYPD isn't staffed and run by rocket scientists? What's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh, yeah, "No sh*t, Sherlock!" Their stupidity and ignorance of the modern world is why there are so many videos of police brutality on YouTube. *cough*Patrick Pogan*cough*

jaycjay

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:56:57 -0500

"#7 Ever heard of paragraphs?" Well, you'd need multiple sentences in order to have multiple paragraphs. Ever heard of coherence? I really tried to read that, but... sheesh!

Jen Chung

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:03:08 -0500

@jaycjay, thanks. I try to go back to old emails and copy those addresses so i don't mistype them--who knows where they might end up otherwise.

ides_of_march

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:02:42 -0500

#7 Ever heard of paragraphs?

nypdlies

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:55:56 -0500

this is how the JTTF / NYpigD works. a woman reads an article online, doesnt like the comments calls her dad, a high ranking nypd chief, the joint terrorist task force shows up at your house at 5:30AM announcing a search warrant,(which did not exist and they repeatedly refused to provide) seize 6 computers, rifle through your house for hours, questions your coworkers friends and family about your religion (none), political afiliations (none), activist activities (none),what demonstrations or rallies you attend (none), what you think about iraq war, etc, but these questions are really 'when did he change his name to ____ (insert muslim sounding name given to you by your hispanic parents, when did he convert to islam (dont remember doing that), yell at you for hours in interrogation, claim you made threatening comments when there are many claims that the faulty website allows no editing, review or even spellcheck of comments, hundreds of posts show people stating "i am not this screen name" over the past 2 years of searchable quotes using similiar keywords, which leaves to the imagination that only a small percentage of people actually noticed or even stated they noticed, your work computer consisting of 2 pc desktops, 1 mac running osX & XP, one pc laptop, your boss is so scared shitless that he allows and signs a a statement allowing for consifcation of any computers, cds, cellphones, memory sticks, files, and data, now think about spending a few days booked until you see a judge, because all the proof and evidence they could find is NOTHING, but they want to pursue this anyway even with an illegal search and no proof that you wrote anything anyway, ist good enough for them that if you registered an account with a blog then you must have wrote it since its your email account but you know you didnt write anything...everyone is telling you just to take a plea just to get it over with, you know that this so called comment doesnt even constitute to incite imminent lawless action. according to supreme court Brandenburg v. Ohio, but hey some thin skinned lady read something on a blog and was able to get the nypd to spend its resources chasing down an innocent person, depriving him of his rights to search and seizure and false imprisonment....of course this can happen to anybody on a blog, all you people think this can never happen to you and all your snide comments are all one word or sentence away from having the cops knock on your door if you disagree with an article or another poster, but really now how many people would be in jail or arrested or even have a nyc detective be able to do all this just because you didnt like a comment on your myspace page, for more info contact nypdlies@hotmail.com

jaycjay

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:49:20 -0500

"...why not reply to his email? The story makes it seem like she typed out his email address (incorrectly) to contact him." But, Jen, the earlier Gothamist account gives a little more detail. First he wrote to her to resign; she replied "sympathetically" to that email. Some time later, then, "when Bernsen tried to contact him again to request the return of a library key, she mistakenly emailed her request to someone who uses “Ben” Hallowell as an email address." So, sure, she could have used a 'reply' again, but since she wasn't actually replying to his earlier email that time it's not so surprising that she'd start new. Then maybe she just went from memory, maybe she made a typo, maybe... who knows?

CR

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:28:40 -0500

#2 - Video tape surveillance perhaps, if it's still available. I'm not saying this is the crime of the century, but seeing as the shit they put the wrong guy through, perhaps they could spend five minutes and try and figure out who the right guy is.

ides_of_march

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:26:57 -0500

The cops have a new suspect. They just put out an APB on someone named James Joyce.

Jen Chung

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:20:43 -0500

Apparently Hallowell's boss was replying to his email that he was quitting--why not reply to his email? The story makes it seem like she typed out his email address (incorrectly) to contact him.

widefive

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:15:29 -0500

#1, If the account was registered from a public computer then how are they going to know who it was?

r1b2

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:13:29 -0500

What's shocking is that the authorities do indeed have the email address from the note sent to Bernsen and have done nothing. If that note was deemed threatening, shouldn't they have picked up the actual sender by now?