April 07--PANAMA CITY -- If you are going to commit a crime, you probably shouldn't brag about it after the fact and you especially shouldn't brag about it to your "friends" on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites.
That's the hard lesson that one man learned this week, police said.
Jonathan Appleby, 23, of Panama City, was arrested Tuesday after Bay County Sheriff's Office investigators found pictures of him and a friend on his Facebook page holding bottles of expensive Dom Perignon champagne, with the caption, "Hey, we're having Dom in the morning!"
The champagne had been stolen from a local hotel for which Appleby had previously worked, police said.
Appleby denies that. He said Friday in a Facebook conversation the champagne he was holding was not stolen. He said he told investigators the champagne was a gift he received from a friend when he went to Boston over New Year's. However, he was arrested after he exercised his right to remain silent, Appleby said.
Maj. Tommy Ford of the Bay County Sheriff's Office said Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are another tool in their ongoing fight against crime. They use these places to find evidence against criminals and to get the public's help when a crime has been committed.
"The biggest benefit we've seen from it is from a public information standpoint. It's another way to connect," Ford said. "I don't think we'd be doing our jobs if we weren't using that resource."
When The News Herald asked readers if they ever shared anything incriminating online, several people jokingly took the Fifth.
"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me," wrote Rick Tucker.
But it's not a joke to local public defender Kim Dowgul.
Dowgul said her clients should know better than to snitch on themselves in such a public forum, but they don't. What clients don't seem to understand is that saying something on Facebook is the equivalent of making a written statement to law enforcement officers or plastering it on a billboard, Dowgul said.
"If you're going to do something bad, don't post it," Dowgul said. "You would think it wouldn't take a rocket scientist but I swear it does."
There is no right to privacy on Facebook and no way to keep incriminating statements made there out of a trial, she added.
Dowgul said social media is just the latest place where people leave incriminating evidence. In the past investigators often found photos laying around a suspect's home, on their phones or confessions viatext.
As for Appleby, on Thursday morning he returned to his Facebook page and responded to a friend who told him he was famous now.
"I ain't even convicted," Appleby wrote.
Copyright 2012 - The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.
