2 Charged With Leaking Photos of Slain Girl
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BOULDER, Colo. — A photo lab employee and a former sheriff’s deputy were arrested Wednesday on charges of leaking the JonBenet Ramsey crime-scene photos that a supermarket tabloid published.
Lawrence Shawn Smith, a processor with Photo Craft Laboratories, and former deputy Brett Allen Sawyer sold the photos to the Globe for $5,500, said Boulder County Sheriff George Epp. Epp said Smith received only $200 from the deal.
Smith, 36, was charged with theft, tampering with physical evidence, obstructing government operations and false reporting. Sawyer, 38, was charged with obstructing government operations. Both were booked and released.
A remorseful Sawyer, a private investigator, said in an interview with KCNC-TV that he did not think the tabloid would publish the photos but thought it would turn them over to experts for analysis. Sawyer said he would give the money he received to charity and apologize to the Ramsey family.
Photo Craft President Roy M. McCutchen earlier apologized to the community and the Ramsey family and said he fired Smith.
JonBenet, the 1995 Little Miss Colorado, was found strangled in the basement of her home Dec. 26.
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