Facebook Makes It Possible For People To Face Jail Time.

Facebook posts lead to revocation of probation

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Boasts of drinking exploits on social networking sites have cost some people their freedom.

Offenders on probation are ending up in prison or getting other sanctions with increasing regularity after posting pictures online of themselves with alcohol or firearms or bragging about out-of-town trips made without permission from their probation officers, according to judges, prosecutors and Kentucky corrections officials.

It happened to Scott W. Roby of Louisville. Convicted of possessing methamphetamine and Ecstasy, Roby had his probation revoked this month - and was sentenced to two years in prison - in part for violating conditions that required him to stay alcohol-free.

Roby posted Facebook pictures of himself drinking, including one in which he was holding a beer while posing next to the mascot for the Louisville Bats, prosecutor Dinah Koehler told The Courier-Journal. Before that, Roby had invited his probation officer to be his friend on Facebook.

In another case, Donnie Lee Griffith Jr., who was on probation, went to prison last year on theft and burglary convictions after the 22-year-old Louisville man posted a Facebook photo in which he held a jar of clear liquid over a caption that said, "Moonshine rocks and so do I!"

In another post, he reported that he was "drinking like a fish," according to court records.

Griffith, who was released on shock probation after serving about six months behind bars, didn't respond to messages left on his Facebook page, which no longer shows him drinking, the Louisville newspaper reported.

Chelsea Otto, also 22, got 60 days tacked on to her 1-year sentence for cocaine possession in 2009 after she boasted that she drank "like 20 pina coladas" during an unauthorized weekend trip to Clearwater, Fla.

Otto, who has moved to St. Louis, also didn't answer messages left on her now-sanitized page.

Roby is in prison and his lawyer, Scott C. Cox, said he had no comment, other than to note that his client's Facebook postings were only part of the reason his probation was revoked - as was true in some of the other revocations.

Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Audra Eckerle said she's revoked probation for two offenders in part for their Facebook posts in recent years, including one who brandished a firearm in violation of his probation rules.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Bill Adams, who prosecuted Otto, said he's had a half-dozen cases in which offenders on probation incriminated themselves through social-media sites.

Probationers are required to stay away from alcohol, drugs and firearms and out of places that derive most of their revenue from alcohol sales.

The state doesn't track revocations triggered by social-media postings, but officers have used social media heavily for four years, both to find absconders and to monitor offenders on probation, said Lisa Lamb, a Corrections Department spokeswoman.

One officer, Shannon Blalock, who works out of the department's Murray office, does nothing but troll online and train other officers to do the same.

Blalock said some judges peruse social-media sites themselves, looking for violators.

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