The California Attorney General declare criminal charges against four manpower it lay claim are the owners and wheeler dealer of Mugshots.com . The website has been under firefor yearsover its practice session of scraping law of nature enforcement website to put out mugshot and oftenincompletecriminal record . It then demands large fees through a babe website for absent the entropy .
Anaffidavitobtained byArs Technicaaccuses Sahar Sarid , Thomas Keesee , Kishore Vidya Bhavnanie and David Usdan , of operating the website and charges them with extortion , money laundering , and identicalness theft . At this full point , all men are said to be in custody . Ina notepublished on his personal website , Sarid claims that he was only involved with Mugshots.com in a “ circumscribed persona ” that terminate in 2013 .
The notorious site haslong beenthe most big example of a cottage industry design to prey on citizenry who have been nab . Even in cases where no boot were impart , or suspect were witness guiltless , Mugshots.com keep open stay double online , hold it difficult for them to do normal thing like get a job or recover trapping . According to astatementfrom the Attorney General , when a victim asks to have their information removed , they ’re lead to a secondary web site called Unpublisharrest.com that charges a “ de - publishing ” fee .
The affidavit contains testimony from 18 of the site ’s dupe . In one humans ’s case , he was arrested but never charged due to lack of evidence . After applying for more than 100 jobs and getting nowhere , some friends and syndicate channelize out that his arrest information was wide uncommitted online . He seek to explain to a earphone hustler for unpublisharrest.com that he was never charge and ask that his selective information be removed from the site . He was secernate that he ask to pay $ 399 . After reject multiple times , the wheeler dealer became abusive and deny to even accept payment thereafter .
In another character cited in the papers , a woman ’s husband spend a dark in jail in 1998 and was never charged with a crime . He committed felo-de-se in 2002 , but their now - adult Word has the same name as his father , and the mugshot is the first result when his name is searched online .
Another dupe is said to have paid the company $ 399 for remotion but at long last shelled out a totality of $ 4,000 to various divine service . One player in a polite suit register in Illinois last yearclaimedthat he was told it would cost $ 15,000 to take down his information .
California ’s Attorney General Xavier Becerrawrote , “ this wage - for - remotion scheme attempts to gain off of someone else ’s chagrin . ” Becerra arrogate the service impart in $ 64,000 in removal fees from California resident physician over the last three years , and over $ 2 million from victims across the country .
The jurist in the Illinois civil suitpushed backagainst the claim of extortion , but grant it to move forward as a violation of the arrestees ’ right of promotional material . Scott Ciolek , an lawyer who has antecedently sue Mugshots.com , tellsArs Technicathat once the criminal compositor’s case “ is resolved the grounds that they have collect will be available to use by the other affected people around the nation . ” Not only could that facilitate somebody sue Mugshots.com , but prepare a criminal case law would in all likelihood aid in follow other schemes like it .
[ Superior Court of CaliforniaviaArs Technica ]
California
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