Fast Kentucky Mugshot Removal? Call 844-935-1118 Today
Do you feel mugged by your mugshot? If your booking photo shows up online in Kentucky, mugshot removal usually means two things. First, you take down arrest photos from mugshot websites and search results. Second, in some cases, you clear the underlying record through expungement with help from a service such as Clean Slate Kentucky.
Is your mugshot or arrest record still online?
Get a Free Case ReviewInvestigative reporters have found more than 80 mugshot websites. That means more than 80 opportunities for your mugshot to damage your privacy, your reputation, and your future.
How an Online Mugshot Hurts You
An old arrest photo can follow you online even after you’re found not guilty or the charges get dropped. It can affect your job search and your housing options. You might sail through an application process only to watch an offer disappear at the very end.
Nobody has to explain why. You’re just left wondering if the personnel department found your old mugshot online.
Mugshots online can spoil budding relationships. An online mugshot can keep you from renting an apartment or closing a loan. It can interfere with your employer’s surety bond application, which spells trouble for your continued employment. That embarrassing photo can even block funding for your business venture.
If you did the crime and served your time, most people agree you deserve a break to rebuild your life. Online mugshots stand in your way. For many Kentuckians, expungement is part of that path, since clearing an eligible record can improve your job and housing prospects.
And if police arrested you for a crime you didn’t commit, or someone lied to get you arrested, most people agree you deserve to have that mugshot removed from the public record and the internet.
Why Kentucky Law Doesn’t Fully Protect You
There ought to be a law. But Kentucky’s legislature has never fully closed this gap. State agencies generally treat booking photos as public records under Kentucky’s Open Records Act, which is exactly why these photos spread so easily online.
If you’re in Kentucky and trying to get a mugshot off the internet, keep reading. We’ll cover why these sites resist removal, what Kentucky law does and doesn’t protect, when DIY removal works, and when you need professional help or expungement.
The Mugshot Extortion Problem
Some mugshot websites use your booking photo to extort money from you. These sites publish directories of mugshots. They harvest photos from sheriff’s departments and city police departments, sometimes within 24 hours of an arrest, often before you even post bail. Nobody checks whether you’re guilty or innocent first.
Once your photo lands on one of these sites, anyone with an internet connection can assume the worst.
Usually, after your mugshot has sat online for 30 to 90 days, long enough to cause real damage, you’ll get an email. Pay $500, $1,000, sometimes up to $5,000, and the site will remove your photo.
But paying up only removes it from that one site. Copies on social media and elsewhere stay put.
Kentucky’s Anti-Extortion Law: KRS § 61.8746
Kentucky did pass felony expungement laws to curb this kind of extortion. In 2016, lawmakers enacted Kentucky Revised Statute § 61.8746. This law prohibits anyone from using a booking photo commercially if they post it on a website or in a publication and then charge a fee to remove it. If a site does this to you, you have a right of action.
In plain terms: if a website posts your mugshot and demands payment to take it down, you can file a criminal complaint against the site’s owners.
The penalties are steep. Violations are criminal offenses, and you can sue the owners in Kentucky Circuit Court. Win your case, and the law entitles you to your legal fees plus:
- $100 a day for the first 30 days
- $250 a day for the next 30 days
- $500 a day for every day after that
Why the Law Falls Short in Practice
Sounds promising, right? Kentucky law could force a site to remove your mugshot and pay you up to $15,000 per month if it refuses.
In reality, this law rarely helps Kentuckians whose mugshots are already online. You often can’t sue a website owner based outside Kentucky in Kentucky Circuit Court, and private commercial or international site owners can be especially hard to reach or hold accountable.
You might end up filing in federal court instead. Your lawyer needs a license to practice before federal courts, or you’ll need a very patient judge if you represent yourself.
Even a win, or a default judgment because the other side never shows up, doesn’t guarantee you collect damages. You could face a wall of legal defenses and end up with a paper victory. Your mugshot might still sit online.
What Expungement Can and Can’t Do
Clean Slate Kentucky can help you expunge your court records. Kentucky law allows certain arrests and charges to be removed from your public record, but expungement primarily affects official records. It doesn’t directly reach third-party sites, and it won’t automatically force private mugshot websites to remove copies.
Expungement can still improve your official background checks, even without guaranteeing removal from private websites. It helps most with employers patient enough to wait while you work through the legal process.
Clean Slate Kentucky can’t do much for mugshots already circulating online. For that, you need different help. Let’s cover the DIY route first.
DIY Approaches to Kentucky Mugshot Removal
It’s bad enough that your mugshot sits on a mugshot site. It’s worse when someone Googles your name, and your mugshot pops up first.
Google has adjusted its algorithms so mugshots don’t rank as prominently as they used to. Still, many people create enough Google-friendly content to push mugshots down the search results, onto a page nobody scrolls to.
If your mugshot doesn’t show up until page three or four of someone’s search, they’re less likely to find it.
This approach genuinely works, and you don’t need to hire anyone. You just need to publish plenty of favorable content tagged with your name that outranks your mugshot.
Two other DIY tactics:
- Ask PayPal to block payments to any mugshot extortion site. They’ll often comply.
- Ask Google to block payments to the same sites.
The catch: neither approach removes your mugshot from the internet. Extortion sites simply switch payment methods as fast as processors shut them down.
The Sure Way to Remove Your Mugshot from Mugshots.com
If the internet has a “mugshots central,” it’s the notorious mugshots.com. This site draws tens of thousands of daily visitors through “news stories” featuring mugshots of thousands of people, many of them innocent. The site doesn’t stop at photos. It digs up lurid details about people charged with crimes, even without solid evidence they committed them.
Clean Slate Kentucky notes that mugshots.com will remove your photo if you can prove your underlying criminal record has been cleared, typically through expungement, and then provide one of these:
- Paperwork from the arresting police or sheriff’s department confirming you were never charged
- A filed court order from your county clerk’s office showing your arrest record was legally expunged
How Do You Prove You’re Innocent?
Proving something never happened isn’t easy. You may qualify for expungement if the police arrested you but never charged you, if your case was dismissed or you were acquitted, or once the waiting period has passed for a misdemeanor or certain Class D felonies.
Clean Slate Kentucky recommends getting an expungement order from the court with jurisdiction over your charge. An order of habeas corpus from a higher court might also work. In some cases, a statement from the arresting police department confirming you were never charged is enough.
What Won’t Work
An order of habeas corpus releasing you from custody counts. A statement from the arresting police department counts. Your own statement that “they never charged me” does not count on its own.
Getting mugshot removal is easier if police arrested you but never filed charges. Most misdemeanor convictions become eligible for expungement five years after you complete your sentence, including probation. Most Class D felonies follow the same five-year timeline, though some offenses are excluded. Sex offenses and certain other crimes never qualify for expungement in Kentucky.
Once you have your paperwork, send mugshots.com a GIF or PDF of the magistrate’s finding that cleared your arrest from the docket.
The Expungement Process Takes Patience
Few people can navigate this entire process alone: filing the right paperwork with the right police offices and courts, answering a judge’s questions, then filing the court order with the right clerk. Your expungement application requires a certificate of eligibility, a filing fee of about $50, and a hearing within 120 days.
Even with the right paperwork in hand, stay calm and polite with mugshots.com. Threats won’t get you anywhere, and they’ll find ways to make the process harder.
The full expungement process can take up to a year. Goodwill clinics and Unconvicted.com offer additional guidance to help you determine eligibility, complete the right forms, and request fee waivers if you need them. If the court grants relief for a felony conviction, it also restores your voting rights and jury-service eligibility.
Need Help With Kentucky Mugshot Removal?
Whether you’re dealing with Kentucky mugshot removal or a similar situation in another state like South Carolina, you don’t have to handle it alone.
NetReputation’s team doesn’t put mugshots online. We help you take them down. Call us at 844-935-1118 for help with Kentucky mugshot removal today.
