ST. LOUIS – A mugshot website has been accused of breaking Missouri law by asking for money to take down pictures that it has posted of individuals.
STLMugshots.com is run by the owner and administrator of the site, Edmund Ben Tauk, who also runs an associated Facebook page. Tauk is currently being sued by Kevin E. Boone, 62, and Jardena M. Green, 27, in the St. Louis Circuit Court, alleging that the defendant violated state law when it published the information for the purpose of obtaining a fee to remove it.
Peter M. Vujin, a Miami-based attorney, explained that in the case of STLMugshots, the violation is that of defamation.
Attorney Justin Meehan
| Courtesy of Meehan Law
"We have a clear case of defamation here: publication of an ordinary person's medical condition that shows a venereal or deadly disease, or an imputation of a commission of a crime, like here, is per se defamation in our common law," Vujin told St. Louis Record. "That means that an ordinary person (not a public figure, the law is completely different for public figures...) who has been harmed by a publication alleging an imputation of a crime does not have to prove whether the crime really happened or not. It is enough that someone accused them of a crime to successfully sue that person."
Both Boone and Green previously were arrested for not registering their vehicles, but they allege STLMugshots failed to remove their pictures from the site after their requests, instead demanding payment to remove the photos. Boone alleges he was asked to pay $500 in cash to remove his information.
Justin Meehan, the plaintiffs' attorney, explained the situation and likened it to a ransom.
"There is an industry that basically holds people's reputation for ransom," Meehan told the St. Louis Record. "And this was in the days when municipalities were using their citizens as ATM machines and giving them tickets for every conceivable traffic or minor violation in order to make money and avoid having to solve serious crime."
Meehan explained that while this incident is certainly prevalent in Missouri, it also is taking place in other states.
"In many states, people are obtaining arrest and booking photos and information, in this case, STLMugshots and BehindTheBars were paying REGIS and REGIS would give the photo, the name of the person, what they were charged with and their birthday and they would post this information publicly."
Meehan stated that they would post the information in their magazines and online, oftentimes without the knowledge of the individuals' whose information was being published.
"In the cases of Green and Boone, I had people who were charged with an ordinance violation and they started getting phone calls from family, relatives and friends, saying 'I saw your mugshot,'" Meehan said.
Their suits states the photos were posted on Facebook as well, which greatly increased the number of people who saw them, and the only way to remove them was through paying the fee demanded by the site administrator.
Meehan explained that there have been steps in the right direction, both through prohibiting the demand of money for the removal of the pictures as well as creating the right of an individual to sue for damages as a result of having their mugshots and information posted and being contacted for money.
"It's like kidnapping," Meehan said, explaining that even after the initial site would take the information down, it was still buried across countless other websites, making it virtually impossible to remove all of the traces of the mugshot posting.
"The best policy, the one that the state of Missouri seeks here, is to have the offending photographs withdrawn voluntarily - we'll see if the party in question is wise enough to follow the Law," Vujin said. "There is a great deal of money involved here, and people tend to overlook the law once a great sum of money is on the table."