14 DAY TRIAL // Social networks help police officials once again, after just last week a bank robber was convicted because of his MySpace status. This time it was 20-year-old Erika Scoliere's turn to get busted because of a couple of Facebook photos.
The girl from Campton Hills, Illinois was awaiting trial with accusations of reckless homicide and aggravated DUI after a car crash in July 2007 that resulted in the death of a motorcyclist and which police say she was involved in. She was out on bail pending the trial but she wasn't allowed to consume any alcohol or be around people consuming alcohol. This was on top of the fact that she wasn't of drinking age in the US anyway.
It looks like she couldn't just resist having a drink and in some very bad judgment on her part she posted photos of her at a party with her college friends in Ohio on her Facebook profile. It didn't take long for the authorities to get a hold of the offending pictures and Scoliere found herself in front of a judge again.
"It appears the defendant is having a grand old time drinking tequila," Judge Thomas Mueller said during the hearing on Wednesday, according to the Chicago Tribune. "'Erika passed out in my bed. Ha Ha,'" the judge said, quoting one of the captions. This was evidence enough for him and he ordered Scoliere to wear a device around her ankle that could detect the consumption of alcohol from perspiration and would alert the authorities if she violated her bail agreements. She also had to pay $15 a day to wear it.
It is clear that in this case she had it coming but it does again raise the question of just how much we share online. It seems that we haven't yet realized that once the information is out there it's pretty much out of our control and it may find its way into the hands of our parents, employers or in some cases the authorities.