I just bought a locked/stolen iphone on craigslist can i press charges?

I didn't know i was icloud locked can i file a police report will they do anything?

Nope

Buyer beware

You can try to file charges depending on your local police if they are not that lazy enough to pursue

They will confiscate that phone however

No they will confiscate your phone., like @Jin Hayashi said you can try. But you can try using iTunes and do a hard reset of your iPhone through PC. Once done you should be able set it up as a new device.

They won't do anything, they'll just take that phone.

Sure you can file a complaint, but since you are in possession of stolen goods, you will NOT be able to keep it, not that it would do you any good, since the phone can't be activated on any carrier, since the owner will have reported it stolen, and the carrier will have blacklisted the IMEI/ESN, making it impossible for anyone to activate that phone on any carrier in the North America or Europe.

Also your complaint won't do much good, since you can't prove that the person that sold you the phone, knew that it was stolen. So reporting it to the police, gets the phone taken from you (stolen property again), and you out whatever you paid for it even if the seller didn't know the history of the of the phone. And if the seller did know… You got scammed, with no way to prove it. And really have no leg to stand on IF the ad stated that it was iCloud Locked or had a bad ESN.

You can try to file a claim in small claims court to recoup your money from the seller, but you face the task of getting in touch with the seller again to get contact information to serve them.

Why did you not check this before paying? Its easy to check it and I assume you bought in person.