Good news for sleazeball celebrity photographer Terry Richardson: He didn't do at least one of the sketchy, sexually harassing things he's been accused of. A Facebook message offering a model a high-profile shoot in exchange for sex actually originated from a fake account.

Richardson's people hired a digital forensic expert to prove he didn't promise Emma Appleton a spread in Vogue in exchange for sex, and that expert did his job.

Theo Yedinsky discovered the shocking message had been sent from a fake, unverified Richardson page registered under "a random gmail account." Facebook has since confirmed this and deleted the impostor's account.

A source "close to Richardson" told Page Six, "The whole thing is defamatory and possibly illegal. Appleton's agent was informed about the fake account . . . but refused to acknowledge the truth and continued to grandstand."

Appleton admitted on her now-deleted Twitter account that the message could have been fake. But given Richardson's reputation, few would blame her for thinking it was authentic. "Uncle Terry" has been accused of coercing models into various uncomfortable and sexually predatory acts, including ejaculating on them and "suggesting [they] touch his terrifying penis."

Last month, in an open letter published on the Huffington Post, Richardson dismissed various models' accounts of working with him as "internet gossip" and "false accusations."

[Photo Credits: Getty Images, D1 Models]