Googling For Prospective Date Unmasks Fugitive

pgrote writes "So you're a guy on the run - you decide to switch towns, put down some roots and start dating again. But if your special new friend happens to be someone who checks her potential dates by searching on Google, you're in trouble. Seems that LaShawn Pettus-Brown was caught by his date's discovery of him on an FBI site of fugitives, even after local Cincinnati news media couldn't find him. Score one for the Internet."

Comments

rofl!

[f13nd]

owned by a geek-chick

Technology is a double edged sword..

[grub]

1980: Do you have Herpes?

1986: Do you have AIDS?

1995: I have pepper spray.

2004: I have Google.

Oh well.. at least RealDolls can't use search engines.. yet..

Re:Technology is a double edged sword..

[thdougherty]

Oh if only I knew of RealDolls before I got married...

They're so lifelike!!!

Re:Technology is a double edged sword..

[Dukael_Mikakis]

I guess it's just a sign of the times. Previously, it seems that nobody had to worry about diseases and a criminal history and everything (well, diseases because we didn't know many of them existed), but this is certainly because people wouldn't travel as much and tended to know their dates for a long time before they began dating.

Now, people are dating others whom they haven't even met, and who might be only telling lies to them, so clearly there's a need for this.

It's like an incorporation of romance and love. If you're running a small business or a small store, you will very likely know your customers (and employees) very well and be able to trust them without too many problems, but when business scale up and become increasingly large, there's no way that you can account for all of the people, or know them personally, and so there's record-keeping and spying and every such thing.

Obviously with online (or more anonymous) dating you have access to so many more potential mates, which improves selection and makes things somewhat easier, but all the anonymity and deception makes me wonder if this whole trend is actually a good thing or not.

But all this doesn't affect me. Joining slashdot is like taking a vow of celibacy.

Re:Technology is a double edged sword..

[Plugh]

I'll throw my US$0.02, what the hell. Maybe my story is worth something to somebody:

Obviously with online (or more anonymous) dating you have access to so many more potential mates, which improves selection and makes things somewhat easier, but all the anonymity and deception makes me wonder whether if this whole trend is actually a good thing or not.

In my personal experience, it's just like globalization and open markets: real scary if you are engaged in deception, and absolutely fantastic if you want lots of choice.

A few years ago, in my early thirties, I decided it was finally time to find a wife. I was (finally) ready to commit. My parents urged me to "shop around". So I did, using means an admittedly very shy geek can do: online sites (ie, match.com) and personal-intro services (ie, Table For Six).

To make a long story short, I met a lot more women in a few months than I had in the previous 10 years, despite my introverted nature. After dating a few of them, I wound up marrying a very nice woman. And -- please forgive me, I cannot resist saying this -- she's a stunning blonde, tall, gorgeous, busty, and has a degree in mathematics. Ca-Ching!

Probably I shouldn't post this and probably most people will assume I'm an ad-bot, but the 2 or 3 people who know me that read slashdot know I'm on the level.

Anyway, I'm all for improving selection and making things easier. Go for it. If you're introverted like myself, it could be the difference between passing along your genes or not! Hell, we desperately need smart people to procreate...

Major Major Major

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I bet this guy is wishing his parents had given him a more common name than "LaShawn Pettus-Brown"...

Re:Major Major Major

[robbyjo]

I bet this guy is wishing his parents had given him a more common name

Yeah, like... Anonymous Coward... That would score 138K hits in Google

You have to wonder

[nizo]

If your potential date discovers you sell penis enlargement items on the internet for a living, will that help or hurt your chances?

Hrm

[iswm]

I would think getting your name changed would help quite a bit. Seems kind of silly to post your real name in the google personals if you're wanted by the FBI.

Darwin Award potential here

[John Jorsett]

Only a moron would use his real name when he's on the lam. I can go to several locations in my city and come away with an authentic-looking drivers's license, social security card, whatever. Hell, I can even get a Mexican Matricula Consular card, even though you can read in the dark by my skin color. This woman deserves a reward for removing this guy's genes from the pool, even if temporarily.

Re:BE CAREFUL OF LINK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn? It's not porn! It's just a website where lonely geeks can find a friend who is rather...easy to burst into flames if too close to a fire. That's discrimination, brother!

Unbelievably cheap bastard

[SysKoll]

From the article: The city lost more than $184,000 on the project after investing heavily in Pettus-Brown's failed plan to rehabilitate the 90-year-old theater on Vine Street. The FBI has said that nearly $93,000 of the money the city paid Pettus-Brown is missing.

So the guy steals about 100K and invites a date to freaking Applebee?! EIther he's really a cheap bastard or he already spent it all.

Men these days. You cannot even get a French restaurant date out of a rich thief anymore.

Hey, read the article!

[marnanel]

If the Cincinatti media had googled him, they'd have found exactly what they already knew: that there was a warrant out for his arrest. The only sort of person who could have found both halves of the story by googling is the sort of person who did: someone who knew him and his whereabouts personally, but needed Google to tell her that he was a fugitive.

Googling for dates?

[artemis67]

Hmmm... could be interesting... lemesee...

+blonde +thirtysomething +"blue eyes" -kids +"36 24 36" -smoker +5'11" +model +"into geeky guys"

Wha? Zero results?

Re:IQ test

[eric2hill]

I called our phone company at work and asked if they sold Caller IQ because, as I explained, there are many idiots at our office and I would like to screen my callers based on their IQ. The sales person didn't have it available yet. Dammit.

Maybe it works the other way as well.

[Karplusan]

Hmmm, so if girls check google on their guys... Say, how does one go about getting their webpage put in the top of Google? I was thinking of trying to register http://www.heisthebest.com/ and of course, put my name all over it. I see no flaws in my plan.

Re:BE CAREFUL OF LINK!

[martinX]

who the hell would look at naked dolls

Ken?