KARMA! men who posted mugshots online & charged to have them removed - Arrested

[Demovictory9]

Karma can be painful, as the alleged owners of a controversial website which publishes police mugshots and charges people to have them removed, have discovered.

On Wednesday, Thomas Keesee and Sahar Sarid, two of the alleged owners of Mugshots.com, were arrested in Florida, following an investigation led by the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force. California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, has brought criminal charges against both men as well as the other two co-owners, Kishore Vidya Bhavnanie and David Usdan.

The four defendants are accused of extracting more than $2m in mugshot-removal fees from over 5,000 people in a three-year period. Of those people, 175 have billing addresses in California, where the alleged Mugshot.com owners will face trial for extortion, money laundering and identity theft.


“This pay-for-removal scheme attempts to profit off of someone else’s humiliation,” Becerra said in a press release. “Those who can’t afford to pay into this scheme to have their information removed pay the price when they look for a job, housing or try to build relationships with others. This is exploitation, plain and simple.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/18/mugshot-photos-arrested-extortion-just-busted

[NurseJackie]

1. Ha!

Who will they have to pay to have their mugshots removed?

[catrose]

2. I love it

[X_Digger]

3. Mugshots and arrest records are public records.

The identity theft and money laundering may be crimes, but I can't imagine extortion sticking:

The elements of California extortion are:

The defendant threatened to do one of the following to the alleged "victim":
a. Unlawfully injure or use force against him/her, a third party, or his/her property,
b. Accuse him/her or a relative or family member of a crime, OR
c. Expose a secret involving him/her or a family member, or connect any of them with some kind of crime, disgrace, or scandal;
When making the threat or using force, the defendant intended to force the "victim" into consenting to give him/her money or property or to do an official act;
As a result of the threat, the "victim" did consent to give the defendant money or property or do an official act; AND
The "victim" then actually did give the defendant money or property or perform the official act.

Arrests being public record, there is no 'secret', and in this case, the mugshot is already online.

Despicable? Absolutely. Extortion? Umm..

[Demovictory9]

5. illegal or not, a disgusting business model

[USALiberal]

6. I can see these two threatening to put someone on the front page, etc. Tell their boss, etc. nt

[X_Digger]

7. If I understand the charges, the state's claiming that just publishing the photos and then..

.. taking money to remove them is extortion. But the photos are public record, so there's no 'secret' involved.

If, as you posit, they were contacting the people and threatening them, that might be a better case.

[brer cat]

4. Thanks to Becerra!

K&R

[removeslander]

8. A small celebration, and a big battle yet to fight!

Unfortunately it is indeed legal, and these 2 individuals aren't even a drop in the bucket in terms of the corrupt industry as a whole :/

[gopiscrap]

9. welcome to DU