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Is Claiming to Commit a Crime Illegal

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  • 12-06-2009, 10:13 PM
    helloyellow
    Is Claiming to Commit a Crime Illegal
    My question involves criminal law for the state of: New York

    On a student-run anonymous forum, a friend of mine left a post saying he had sold some finals-crazed students Benadryl instead of Adderall - something he did not actually do; he does not possess any drugs at all, and has never engaged in the buying or selling of these kinds of drugs. He simply thought it would be a funny post to put on the forum. Later a school official posted on the site saying that posts involving the selling or deliberate mislabeling of illegal drugs would be referred to the local police department as evidence of potentially criminal activities.

    My question is a two-part one:

    1) If it was posted on an anonymous forum in which (I assume) there was no logging of IP addresses, would it be at all possible to trace the post back to its source? (Not a strictly legal question but if anybody knows the answer that would be great)

    2) If it is possible to trace the post back to its source, is there any law that has been broken, given that the act did not occur at all? That is, is there any way that my friend saying he did this when he did not actually do it can constitute an illegal act? He's very worried that he could be charged with something or that his post may have given somebody else inspiration to sell people mislabeled drugs, all because of an idea he thought was funny.

    Thanks for any help you can give.
  • 12-07-2009, 04:30 AM
    LawResearcherMissy
    Re: Is Claiming to Commit a Crime Illegal
    1) NEVER assume that there is no IP logging in any given forum. Most forum software logs IP addresses, with no functionality to disable it entirely. Rather, assume there is an IP log.

    In the presence of an IP log, yes, the post can be traced back to its source. HOWEVER - law enforcement cannot just saunter into an ISP and demand logs. They need a court order first. A student engaging in a single incident of college-kid-dumbassery is a pretty unlikely target of that sort of effort.

    2) Claiming to have committed a crime is not in and of itself a crime - there's unfortunately no law against being an idiot. This sort of action can, however, lead to police investigation and other associated unpleasantness. Your friend would do well to screw his head back on and stop acting the fool, unless his idea of a good time is being grilled by the police for something he "thought was funny".
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