Four men have been arrested in connection with their affiliation with a website that garnered over $2.4 million by exploiting people who have been arrested, regardless of whether charges were ever filed or not.
The men are Kishore Vidya Bhavnanie, Thomas Keesee, Sahar Sarid and David Usdan. Personal information about the men is heavily redacted in the affidavit. Only mugshots for two of the men have been publicized.
According to the affidavit, filed in California, over 5,703 people were victimized by Mugshots.com, which still appears to be up and running, as does a Twitter account associated with the site. The men have been charged with money laundering, extortion and identity theft.
Mugshots.com publishes names and photos of arrestees, as well as clips from news articles pertaining to their arrest. A separate (but affiliated) website, Unpublisharrests.com, offers to remove information from the site — for a fee.
Bhavnanie is 49 years old and a resident of Upper Macungie Township, Penn., according to WFMZ-TV. A search on dexpages.com identifies a man named Kishore Bhavnanie with an address in Upper Macungie. According to the affidavit, he is a white male with black hair and brown eyes. In 2013 the Patch wrote an article about the address associated with Bhavnanie and called the home one of the most expensive in the area. It is estimated to be worth at least $1.4 million.
Keesee is also identified as Thomas Herbert Keesee, according to the affidavit. He also has an alias of Chase Johnson. He is a white male with blond hair and green eyes. A blog that collected information on Keesee in 2016 stated that he is 60 years old and has an address in Lake Worth, Fla., and has himself faced drug charges.
Sarid has a website of his own and states he is a web developer in Thailand. He posted a statement on his site on May 15 regarding the charges against him:
My involvement with Mugshots.com and related entities ended in December 2013.
Prior to that, my limited role with these ventures was always as an unpaid consultant. I never got paid nor wanted to be paid by anyone. I was not an owner or an officer of any business related to Mugshots.com.
Mugshots.com makes public arrest records easier to find. I support these ideas and ideals.
According to the affidavit, this is not quite the case. He and his family still profit from the website through bank accounts and company names associated with Mugshots.com.
Usdan is associated with an alias of Tony Howard. He is a white male with brown hair and brown eyes. He is believed to be living in Connecticut, according to WPTV.
The website does not update information even if charges are dropped. In one instance, the affidavit tells the story of a man who was at a bar in college when the police were called. Officers arrested patrons at random and charged them with trespassing. The person in the affidavit, identified only as Chris I., was also charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Video footage of the incident proved his innocence, and the charges were dropped.
However, his photo remained on the Mugshots.com website. After graduating college and starting the job interview process, a friend told Chris I. about his appearance on the site; he now understood why potential employees were not returning his calls. Chris I. ultimately paid the fee to have his information removed from the site.
“This pay-for-removal scheme attempts to profit off of someone else’s humiliation,” said Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, in a statement. “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.”
Becerra’s office also advises:
If you believe you are a victim of Mugshots.com, you are encouraged to file a police report with your local police department so you will have documentation of your complaint. If your booking photo was taken in California, or you were in California when you contacted Mugshots.com to “de-publish” your information, please contact the Attorney General’s eCrime Unit at eCrimeUnit@doj.ca.gov. Out-of-state complaints can be reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) https://www.ic3.gov.
