Heads up scammers claiming to be from Denver County Sheriff's Office
Similar scams have been reported in this Reddit previously, but figured I'd flag because I still spent way too much time humoring the jerks this morning.
I woke to a voicemail from someone claiming to be from Denver County Sheriff's Office about an urgent legal matter. Last month I called the STAR hotline to report an emotionally disturbed person screaming and punching the air outside my place and I figured it was related to that. I called the number back in good faith.
Immediately the "Sheriff" told me that I missed a federal court date and was being cited for failure to appear and contempt of court. He said they had my signature confirmation on a grand jury summons sent to my (old) address. I was so focused on the idea of my signature being forged that I wasn't thinking as critically about how preposterous being charged with contempt of court would be.
He had me write down citation # and bond amounts for both charges and then repeat them back to him. He said that they would arrange for me to Zoom with Judge Michael Angel this afternoon to presumably deal with me disputing signing a summons.
The "Sheriff" then put on someone claiming to be a Federal agent because the trial I missed was for a federal crime. Yes, keep rolling your eyes. That agent said I had two options to deal with the citations, either civilly or criminally with agents arresting me. When he mentioned me needing to use a dropbox to submit my payment, I told him he was giving me "big scam energy." He got irritated by that comment, threatened me with six months in federal prison in DC, and then hung up on me.
Lots of red flags in the encounter that I ignored while I tried to make sense of the scenario. Both men on the call spoke quickly to create a sense of urgency, rattled off vague legal terminology, and wanted to project ultimate authority. In hindsight they were probably the same guy.
TLDR: you're not going to get citations for a missed hearing over the phone, Denver Sheriff's Department (vs Office) shouldn't be calling you for a federal issue, you definitely don't need to pay a bond to some theoretical dropbox.