Facebook post clears robbery suspect

NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A New York man who was held in connection with a holdup said he was cleared by a Facebook message he sent his girlfriend.

Rodney Bradford, 19, said prosecutors dropped the robbery charge against him after discovering he had posted a message to his pregnant girlfriend's Facebook with an inside joke from his father's house in Manhattan only one minute before the Oct. 17 holdup near his own Brooklyn home, the New York Post reported Thursday.

"WHERE MY IHOP?" the message read.

Investigators said the electronic fingerprints from the Facebook posting backed up statements from several witnesses saying Bradford was at his father's house at the time of the robbery. Police said one of the victims had identified one of the robbers as Bradford.

"They had me on Rikers Island for 12 days. It was really miserable," Bradford said, referring to the prison in New York. "If it wasn't for Facebook I'd still be on Rikers Island."