N.S. man charged after fake ad posted seeking police decals

A Pictou County man is facing a seldom-used charge after allegedly posing as different people online in order to buy police decals for a car and to post defamatory comments.

After a two-month investigation, New Glasgow Regional Police said Thursday they'd laid four charges against a 47-year-old man for identity fraud and defamatory libel.

Police received a complaint in January that another person's identity was used to post a Kijiji ad. The ad said this person was looking to buy New Glasgow Regional Police decals, and other police items, for a 2018 Ford Explorer.

Const. Ken MacDonald said the post gathered "a lot of attention" and was used as a way to attract awareness to this other person's identity.

"Within the province of Nova Scotia there's great concerns in terms of police vehicles. And in this case, it was a great concern to us," MacDonald said Friday.

"In terms of the amount of confidence in the public … we want to make sure that our police decals are controlled."

The case brings to mind the Portapique mass killing last April, where a gunman drove a decommissioned 2018 Ford Taurus police vehicle across the province, killing 22 people.

In the months leading up to the shooting, the killer worked to make the vehicle look identical to an actual RCMP cruiser and had decals printed to make the replica look as authentic as possible.

A second complaint also came in this January where a separate person's identity was used to make "defamatory comments" using Google Reviews, MacDonald said.

MacDonald said the rates of identity theft have increased with modern technology, but "especially, in terms of COVID, we've seen a lot more."

Police searched a residence in Linacy, Pictou County at 9:20 a.m. Wednesday. The suspect was arrested and electronic items seized.

The two victims and the suspect are known to each other, police said.

Police lay rare libel charge

The 47-year-old man from Pictou County has been charged with two counts each of identity fraud and defamatory libel.

He has been released under strict conditions and will appear in Pictou provincial court on May 31.

MacDonald said the defamatory libel charge is "rarely used" by police agencies in Nova Scotia, and had never seen it laid within his 15 years with the New Glasgow force.

The Criminal Code defines defamatory libel as material that's published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to "injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published."

"I think this is one of the first departments that have actually used it," MacDonald said. "I can't find it anywhere."