Website Profiting From Pueblo County Suspect Photos

According to an old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. But it’s also worth money for the operator of a website posting booking photos from the online site of the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office.

The website in question is pueblomugshots.com. It re-posts the mugshots of suspects and then offers to remove them for a fee of $99.

The sheriff’s office, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and the county district attorney are investigating whether using the photos for profit is legal. It’s unclear who’s operating the site and where it’s located.

“We tracked (it) to as close as Denver,” said Undersheriff J.R. Hall. “A similar site, mugshots.com, is located in Belize. If we find them, our first step will be to notify them that we disagree with what they’re doing. I’m not sure if it’s right to profit from people who are in unfortunate situations.”

Hall said the office responded to a recent complaint about why the office would charge to remove a photo, and he had to explain the office wasn’t to blame.

Pueblomugshots.com posts hundreds of photos. Hall said he doesn’t know over what period of time the photos were posted there. He also said the pictures are of suspects who still are in custody but also who may have been released or acquitted.

The county jail averages about 500 inmates and books more than 9,000 people annually, Hall said.

The sheriff’s office first learned of the site a year ago, Hall said, and last month decided to stop including photos in online information about inmates or suspects. Hall said mugshots remain available for relatives, employers and media who ask.

“There will be a time in the future when it’ll be easier for us to get (mugshots) out there for the good uses and remove them for the bad uses (but) right now, the technology is working against us,” he said.

Hall said similar websites have targeted other sheriff’s offices in Colorado.