Nearly a year later, Jesse found his booking photo on Mugshots.com. Jesse told law enforcement that, after his arrest, he had applied for 100 jobs in construction, electrical, and manufacturing but had gotten no response.
Finally, Jesse decided to call Mugshots.com’s sister site: unpublisharrest.com. He dialed the 800 number, where “a man told him he needed to pay the $399.” Jesse told this unidentified man that this practice was illegal—the man laughed at him and hung up. Jesse persisted, called again, and told him that he had proof that he had been cleared of all charges. The man hung up again.
Finally, on July 23, 2016, Jesse called the number three times but only got a recorded message. Finally, at 8:08am, his own phone rang with an unlisted number. Jesse started recording the call.
“Hello?” Jesse said.
“—this third time tell you fucking bitch, we never answer your calls again you’ve been permanently published, faggot bitch,” the man said.
“Hey, I’d like my stuff removed.”
Then the call abruptly ended.
In a statement published to his own website, Sahar Sarid—who claims to live in Thailand—wrote that his “involvement with Mugshots.com and related entities ended in December 2013.”
He said that his prior role with the company was “limited” as an “unpaid consultant.”
“Mugshots.com makes public arrest records easier to find,” Sarid continued. “I support these ideas and ideals.”
Despite his claim, the redacted affiant noted that, as recently as 2016, Sarid did not dispute the fact that he is the owner of Mugshots.com. Last year, the site’s owners faced a civil lawsuit brought in federal court in Illinois.
As of this writing, Mugshots.com continues to operate.
UPDATE Friday 1:00am ET: Scott Ciolek, an Ohio attorney who has sued Mugshots.com previously, texted Ars.
“Because of the nature of this and other operations like it, the civil remedies are limited and economically unavailable to the vast majority of people. It seems only the state or federal agencies have the resources necessary to pursue these operations,” he wrote. “But once the case is resolved the evidence that they have collected will be available to use by the other affected people around the country.”