14 DAY TRIAL // As it turns out, a life of crime and being extremely active on social media do not exactly go together in perfect harmony, and 26-year-old Nicholas Wig from Minnesota, US, more than proves it.
Thus, media reports say that the man now finds himself behind bars, and that, in a peculiar sort of way, social networking service Facebook is what put him there.
More precisely, ABC News tells us that 26-year-old Nicholas Wig got arrested after deciding to take a break from robbing a house to check his Facebook and forgetting to sign out when leaving with the spoils.
According to the same source, the house that the man broke into not too long ago belongs to one James Wood, who says that the things Nicholas Wig took from his home include cash, a cheque book, some credit cards and a watch.
James Wood remembers that, when returning home last week, on Thursday, he found the front door open. What's more, the man reportedly noticed that his house in Dakota County was also missing an outer screen from a window.
James Wood eventually mastered the courage to go inside the house and soon figured out that he had been robbed. Shortly after, he alerted the police, and officers were quick to respond to his home.
Together with the police officers in charge of investigating this case, the home owner decided to snoop around Nicholas Wig's Facebook page and paid especially close attention to close-ups of the robber's face.
Probably looking to recover from this experience, James Wood later went for a drive around the neighborhood. Ironically enough, he chanced to cross paths with Nicholas Wig who, for some reason, was still in the area.
The home owner immediately called in the law enforcement officers, and the robber was taken into police custody. When presented with the evidence against him, he confessed his crime, and promised to return everything he had taken from James Wood's house.
Information shared with the public says Nicholas Wood is scheduled to make an appearance in court this coming July 15. If found guilty, he risks being sentenced to up to 10 years in jail. What's more, he could be made to pay $20,000 (€14,700) in fines.
Commenting on this rather peculiar arrest, Monica Jensen, a spokesperson for the Dakota County Attorney’s Office, said, “This is a first case in Dakota County in which a suspected burglar left his Facebook profile on the computer screen of the victim’s computer.”