Some criminals will go so far as to don disguises in their bids to avoid detection. But Anthony Wilson’s one-dimensional wardrobe of baseball caps and hoodies found the marked man marking time before investigators matched his Facebook images to those retrieved from surveillance video of several Detroit area bank robberies. The fashion bandit was indicted on five counts of bank robbery earlier this year.

Tales of stupid criminal tricks involving social networks are not hard to find.

• Two years ago residential burglar suspect Jonathan G. Parker was taken into custody in Pennsylvania after apparently leaving his Facebook page open on a victim’s home computer.
• In 2010, a fugitive was so helpful to the Lockport (N.Y.) Police Department that investigators left a thank you note on his Facebook page. After failing to report for sentencing on an assault charge, Chris Crego considerately updated his Facebook and MySpace pages with details of the Indiana city he had moved to, his place of employment, and the hours he worked.
• Yakima County (Wash.) Sheriff’s Office deputies tracked down a 19-year-old suspect after he’d boasted on Facebook that he had successfully eluded deputies on his motorcycle, including a picture of the bike he’d used in his flight. Rousted out of bed with a 4 a.m. wakeup call by deputies armed with both a search warrant and a printout of the Web page, the poster acknowledged he was the rider. He was charged with reckless driving and other infractions.
• With exhibitionists’ zeal, Stephanie Martinez and her boyfriend, Ricky Gonzalez, used Facebook to virtually proclaim their responsibility for a bank robbery. On March 21, Martinez’s page had a post that read, “GET $$$(,.” On March 24, the day after the robbery, Gonzalez’s Facebook post read, “WOKE UP DIS MORNING! BUST DOWN A SWISHA!!! LOOK IN THE MIRROR LIKE I’M ONE RICH … WIPE MY TEETH WITH HUNDREDS WIPE MY *** WITH DIS 50s :$:$:$:$:$:$.” This was followed on March 25 with a post by Martinez announcing “IM RICH *****” on Gonzalez’s page. The day before, investigators said Gonzalez posted “U HAVE TO PAST THE LINE SOMETIMES!! TO GET DIS MONEY!!” on Martinez’s page. Brought in for questioning, Martinez admitted her involvement in the robbery.

Why do people provide so much incriminating information about themselves online? “Perhaps it’s the illusion of anonymity,” says attorney and law blogger John Richards. “Perhaps it’s the fact that everyone else is cavalier with their personal information online. In any case, we’ve known for years that this type of carelessness can get us into trouble. Yet, it seems that most people have to learn the hard way just how much damage it can do in real life.”

The USCIS says that the “narcissistic tendencies” of those engaging in fraudulent activities finds them “friending” large numbers of people they don’t even know, which provides an “excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities.”

Regardless of why people indulge the proclivity to implicate themselves online, there is no shortage of others trying to save people from themselves. Divorce attorneys offer online counsel against posting certain pictures online. Grasscity.com encourages visitors to use the SWIM defense when it comes to incriminating posts: “Someone Who Isn’t Me.”

Social networking has also proven itself a double-edged sword, permitting predators a new modus operandi by which they may engineer just about every crime imaginable.

Besides corralling pedophiles, Websites such as Facebook have found people telegraphing their punches well ahead of time.

There was little brotherly love evident this August in Philadelphia when 20-year-old London Eley reportedly posted an offer of $1,000 for anyone who would kill the father of her child. Investigators say that 18-year-old Timothy Bynum responded that he’d do the killing. Both were taken into custody and a .22-caliber handgun was retrieved from Bynum’s home.

Sometimes, there isn’t enough to take a subject into custody, or the significance of his or her posts isn’t realized until too late. Such was the case with Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old suspect in the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others at a Tucson grocery. Loughner had railed against the government on Websites weeks prior and had confrontations with community college police officers.

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