E-mail blunder: Innocent employee goes to jail
December 18, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: HR blunder of the week, Here comes the judge, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
New York City will pay a settlement to a former private school librarian who was wrongly imprisoned for 30 hours because of an e-mail mix-up where he worked.
The city will pay William Hallowell $25,000 after he was wrongly arrested because a prankster with an e-mail address similar to his sent lewd messages to his boss over the Internet, a judge has ruled.
After he was arrested, police refused to believe he hadn’t harassed the head librarian at Riverdale Country School.
The e-mail the head librarian received said, “We could do it in the library. I could spank you with a vintage [copy] of Finnegan’s Wake.”
There was also a mention of a gun, so cops hauled in Hallowell.
“I’m really glad everyone officially knows the truth,” Hallowell said. “It’s really good to have the chapter, or really novel, end.”
Tags: Finnegan's Wake, imprisoned, librarian, settlement
December 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I am confused, he was arrested because he supposedly sent a lewd email? or the mention of a gun? someone apparently overreacted.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
The gun reference drew the attention of the police.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:44 am
A confusing mixup by all well-meaning parties. Though Mr Hallowell was definitely wronged, what happened to a sincere apology and two tickets to the policemans’ ball?
December 19th, 2008 at 10:55 am
So the police and the city are too dumb to know that “similar” e-mail addresses don’t mean anything?
Goodness, I hate to consider how many e-mail address there are on the planet that are similar to mine. Let’s hope that none of them ever writes anything mean to anyone, or I suppose that the New York Police Department will come after me, too!
December 19th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Wow. That’s $833 an hour. Arrest me, too, please!
December 19th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
With the technology today, anyone can put in your EXACT email addy in the from line, but send from another. Viruses work that way in some cases. Checking the header information sometimes reveals this little trick, however, the culprits are getting even smarter and in some cases, no one can track where the actual email came from. Welcome to the world of technology and spamming.
December 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Wonder what happened to the real perpetrator of the email messages?? Wonder if they even bothered to check with the ISP to do a trace?