Friend Accused of Crime & You Have Doubts

In My Humble Opinion
1

So you have a friend, we’ll call them Sam, who you’ve known for a few years, and know as a quiet person who just tries to go about life, treat people kindly, go to work, come home, not bother anybody.

A story begins to circulate amongst your circle of friends. Sam’s former spouse has said that Sam stole an irreplaceable and pricey family heirloom of the ex’s during a birthday party for the couple’s (adult) child, held at the ex’s home. The ex can’t prove it and there were other guests, so they’re not calling the police, just telling all the mutual friends about it, claiming that it’s an effort to shame Sam into returning the item.

Your circle of friends is siding with the ex, quite vigorously and vocally. People have left angry voicemails and messages on Facebook (before de-friending Sam or whatever one does on Facebook), demanding that he return this thing he is alleged to have taken.

Sam, aware that there is no good defense against a whispering campaign, has chosen to simply remain quiet. But a few close friends know that while the ex’s public story has been amicable until this sudden theft story, privately, there have been ongoing and over the top efforts at reconciliation, which Sam has repeatedly rebuffed, most recently the night of the birthday party, when Sam revealed an intention to relocate, effectively ending all face to face contact with the ex.

You’re one of those close friends and you strongly doubt Sam’s guilt; there is no reason to steal (no financial need) and no animosity toward the ex, just a desire to firmly close the door on the relationship. You’ve seen emails and heard messages from the ex in which they come across as not seeing clearly where the issue of reconciliation is concerned; they’re not unhinged, just unwilling to face the reality that the marriage is over and won’t be coming back.

Mutual friends have disparaged Sam in your presence, sympathized with the ex, and have expected that you will join in. Your silence on the topic has been noticed, and now you’re having aspersions cast against you for not supporting the ex and standing on the side of a thief. (Yes, your friends are a bunch of gossips. You need better friends.)

What do you do?

2

The answer’s right there.

3

If confronted I’d probably say things like “I wasn’t there and don’t know what happened so I’m just keeping my mouth shut about the whole thing”. That tends to be my rule of thumb about situations like this. If I don’t have first hand knowledge about the situation (for example I was there, he was never in the room with the item, I don’t think he took it, or I was at the party the whole night said item wasn’t on the table when I got there and Sam got there after me, I don’t think it was him) I just keep out of it. These things have a habit of blowing over and I like to just stay out of them. The more people that don’t know what they’re talking about and keep their mouths shut, the faster it’ll blow over. Even defending him will just drag it out longer. Assuming he didn’t take it, short of someone else getting caught with it, there’s not much you’re going to be able to do to convince the people that have already made up their minds, so…whatever.

Let the rumor mill run it’s course, there’s not much you can do to stop it and a whole lot you can do to prolong it. Based on what you said about Sam, (quiet, keeps to himself etc) I’d be willing to bet he’d rather you kept quiet and this blew over faster then having people defend him with no solid evidence and have it drag out with nasty emails flying around for an extra week.

4

Why is everyone taking the ex’s side? Are you lacking some crucial piece of information? If so, get yourself in the know so you can assess all the facts. Do avoid spreading this rumor further, though. Don’t make it any worse for Sam.

If that isn’t the case, then state your position clearly, and your reasons why. Sam has no history of theft, no reason to spite his ex, no motive to steal. Numerous people at the party saw him not take the item, nobody saw him take it. You are being logical, your so-called friends are not. There is no evidence that he committed this, and no motive for him to commit this. Until some proof can be coughed up, you’ll stand by friend. And you can tell your other friends that very thing.

5

My WAG is that the party consisted of mostly the ex’s friends. Most of my friends are left over from my marriage but the were most certainly my ex-wife’s friends to begin with, they became ‘our’ friends during the 11 years we were together. If push came to shove (say, if I was accused of stealing something from her house), they would probably side with her.
Or, like you said, the OP is missing something. But my guess is that it’s probably that they are her friends or at least they all gossip together and once the finger was pointed at him, well, people that gossip tend to agree. It’s more fun to find more reasons why your group is right then argue/debate both sides when you’re gossiping.

6

I think I’d be tempted to say something like, “I don’t know what happened, and neither do you. I have never known Sam to be a thief, and I find it hard to believe he would do that,” and leave it at that. If I was losing friends because I wasn’t joining in on their gossiping properly, I don’t think I’d lose sleep over that.

7

I would defend him just as vigorously as they are accusing him. If they have a problem with that, too bad.

8

In my experience the “keeping quiet” in the face of accusations strategy only works if there’s everything to lose and nothing to gain by confronting the accusations. Yes, it may be a valid perspective that you do not want to dignify the accusations with a comment, but it’s a stupid PR strategy for real life.

Staying mum might be a great plan for a corporate industrial accident, but for small scale, personal scrums you need, on some level, to defend yourself. In that context staying silent is usually interpreted by people (and not entirely irrationally) as akin to a tacit admission of guilt.

If he’s not guilty of the action he’s accused of he needs to speak up and lay out his position. Passively absorbing unjust blame may give you the moral high ground, but it’s still more likely to get you hanged.

9

I think because they’ve believed the ex to be the aggrieved party in the divorce. Sam calmly packed up and left the family house without mentioning it to anyone other than the ex. The kids were grown and gone, and Sam felt that the marriage had run its course, there was a growing gulf of estrangement that neither of them had the will to mend at the time.

I should note that it’s been five years, and this is a circle of about a dozen friends who’ve known each other in various combinations with the longest relationships going back only about a decade. So in the main, people have known Sam and the ex apart for as long as they were known together. But people are weird about these things.

I agree that silence is not helping Sam’s case, but in the absence of exonerating evidence, there’s a sense that it’d become a he said/she said situation and Sam would like the (adult) children spared from any kind of implication that their other parent is a little kooky and a liar. Why it’s better that they think Sam’s a thief, I don’t now.

10

I don’t see that there is anything for Sam to gain by confronting these people. Unless, of course it becomes a real issue in which case he can bring a nice slander lawsuit against them.

Really the whole thing sounds suspect anyway. An “irreplaceable and pricey family heirloom” goes missing and they don’t call the police because the “can’t prove it was Sam”? My ass. They don’t think police detectives who do this stuff for a living might be able to root it out? They don’t want to make an insurance claim against this heirloom? I suspect that that this “heirloom” is either a worthless trinket or they know very well where it is.

11

Is Sam moving far away? If so, you may be able to stay neutral and let it blow over. Sam will soon be just a memory in this friend group, and they will find someone else’s business to get all up in. Sam’s rep will be trashed to the group, but that’s life. Divorce is tough.

If Sam is staying around, then what you’ve got is a friend group split. The truth isn’t the object, so advocating for it won’t get you anwhere. You’ll probably have to either sell out Sam or give up the group. Later, when emotions have calmed and the herd mentality has weakenend, you may be able to become a part of the group again. But yeah, Sam is probably being thrown out of the herd.

The last option is that there is more to the story. Have you point blank asked Sam what happened? It seems really odd that a bunch of otherwise rational people would suddenly turn on a mild mannered gentlemen. At least, odd for people out of middle school. Are they seeing something you aren’t?

12

I would simply tell anyone who started in on the guy that there is more to the story than they know and that with the information you have it is highly unlikely that the guy took anything.

If they want more info, and they will, tell them you cannot talk about it because you promised not to talk about the issue and suggest they ask the guy themselves.

Then i would get new friends asap.

Slee

13

Stick with the truth. “None of us know for sure what happened. But I know Sam and I find it hard to believe he would do something like that.”

14

This, and Sam has a solid reputation. What would be his motive supposedly be for taking this heirloom? To hurt his son? Why? To get back at his ex when he has zero interest in her?

The smart money is on the wife claiming this heirloom was suddenly returned by Sam, claiming that her shame campaign was the reason and look I told you so being her victory speech.

15

People in the real world typically don’t lead hermetically sealed lives. A person’s community reputation has some significant value, especially if you are a professional doing business in that community. If your job and social life (or lack thereof) is completely insulated from your community reputation then possibly silence is viable option.
If I did not take the object in question I would respond in some fashion pointing out how ludicrous the accusation is because of x, y, z facts. Letting the accusation go unchallenged makes it low hanging fruit for the peanut gallery to go after you. Yes it’s a PITA to get into the pigpen and repond to slander, but silence is a pretty weak and generally ineffective reponse in personal disputes unless one side of the other in the dispute has a reputation for being an irrational nutcase.

16

astro, I think you’re missing the point of the OP. The question isn’t about what Sam should do. The question is about what you would do. “You” being Sam’s friend who wasn’t at the party, assumes Sam is innocent but has no evidence one way or the other and seems to be catching some slack for not being part of the ‘burn him at the stake’ party.
This is why I suggested ‘you’ (as in ‘I’ when I said it) just stay out of it. Defending him as a friend is nice and all, but since you/I wasn’t there the only purpose it serves to to keep the rumor mill chugging along. It’ll eventually blow over but defending him with no evidence is just as bad as accusing him with no evidence.

If I were in Sam’s shoes (and I’m one of those quiet introverted, live my own life and not bother other people type of people) and this happened to me and I was about to move far away and more or less lose contact with all these people I’d probably defend myself with a simple and calm “I didn’t take it, I don’t know what to tell you”. I just can’t see it being worth my energy unless I had some great way to prove my innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt.

My fear would be that just before I left it would magically show back up and the ex would tell people I returned it. My hope would be that some time after I left (or before) it would show back up or get returned and the ex would truthfully explain what happened (someone else returned it, it got bumped and fell behind a dresser etc).

17

If I had a rock solid feeling that the accusation was BS, and the accused told me privately it was BS and I was willing to accept that, I would not have problem going to bat for him and defending him publicly on a reputational basis. IE - “you know this guy how can you think he did this blah blah blah”.

I have zero problems calling social friends and acquaintances on their shit if they are being unfair or irrational, but that’s just me. Others may think duck and cover is the best strategy for keeping friends within a group, but why would you want to be friends with a group behaving in such an irrational, feral fashion.

“It’ll eventually blow over but defending him with no evidence is just as bad as accusing him with no evidence.”

I beg to differ on this point. It may cease to be an active conversational topic, but it will forever remain a stain on his reputation in that community. I have taken on a very aggressive, and widely read local blogger and his peanut gallery who were making untrue accusations about a local professional who did not (and really could not) defend himself because he was in the middle of getting municipal project approved and could not afford to be in the middle of a scrum at the same time. I spent several weeks playing daily whack a mole with the nonsense these idiots were trying to get others to believe, and my aggressive defense eventually tuned the tide and shut them up.

If I had remained silent would anything different have happened? I really don’t know, but I do know unanswered accusations do fester and stains to your reputation do not ‘blow over’ even if they are not being actively debated.

18

I just wanted to comment on this little part of the story. Financial need would hardly enter the picture, a theft like this would probably be due to either vindictiveness or revenge. Also, no animosity? I hardly think so, how many people simply decide to ditch their relationship for no reason? But in reality, the OP can’t possibly know what Sam thinks about the ex, only what he SAYS he thinks.

As far as the question in the OP – I’d go with what others have said, “I don’t know, and I’m not willing to throw Sam under the bus based on simple suspicion.”

Of course, I know a serial killer and I doubted it all the way through his second conviction.

19

And per Boyo Jim’s point about missing information this really is the other undropped shoe in this scenario. Per the OP the end of the marriage was pretty much a unilateral decision by super-rational Sam, with the implication there was no serious bad behavior by him during the marriage, and yet most everyone on her side (who have also known him for years) are willing to believe this serious accusation against his character without question.

That’s somewhat unusual. I get the sense that there’s a big chunk of missing information in this vignette.