While it’s certainly not as grave as the murder of a Minnesota babysitter who answered an ad on Craigslist, a Colorado man who trashed his ex in Craigslist’s “Rants and Raves” section faces up to 18 months in prison.

According to the AP, the case began when a woman told Loveland, Colo. police in December 2007 about postings made about her that year on Craigslist. Court records show posts that suggested she traded sexual acts for legal services from her attorney.

After receiving a search warrant, police scoured records from Web sites including Craigslist before identifying J.P. Weichel as the suspect.

Weichel says he was “just venting.”

The Colorado law bans statements “tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead” or that “impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation or expose the natural defects of one who is alive.” Libel is a criminal offense in Colorado (in most states it’s a civil matter).

If Weichel is convicted, disgruntled ex’s and others seeking to blow off steam would be best to stay away from MySpace, Facebook or a blog if they live in Colorado.

On the flip side, Texas seems to be cool with libel. An appellate court in August told an assistant high school principal from San Antonio that her students didn’t defame her when they created a fake MySpace profile that claimed she was a lesbian.

The bogus profile stayed up for about a month in 2006 before Anna Draker found it, after which she asked MySpace to take it down. They promptly did. But Draker then sued the students – and their parents – for defamation and negligence.

A judge in San Antonio threw out the charges before trial, arguing that they didn’t meet the state’s standard of “defamation.”