It turns out the fliers are nothing more than an advertising gimmick.
Leaflets which read: "Attention neighbors: a sex offender moved into this area! We are asking everyone to become aware. Find out who they are and what their address is @ www.defendmystreet.com." This simply sent users into a Web site that prompts them to enter an e-mail address and then pops the users through to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's statewide sex offender site.
On the Douglas County Sheriff's Office's Web page, none of the 21 offenders registered in Highlands Ranch are new.
Of those 21 registered offenders, 14 have convictions relating to children.
The leaflets hit some raw nerves in a community that had Michael Christopher Carroll, a sexually violent predator, as a resident for more than a year. Carroll has returned to Florida.
"This type of notice really did get my attention," said Selket Allen, a Highlands Ranch resident. "I wondered who it is and where in 'my neighborhood' did this criminal just move into."
Allen followed a link to the Douglas County unified sex offender listings, which have all the communities, cities and town in the county on a master list.
She called the sheriff's office and learned that Mile Hi Services was distributing the fliers.
Mile Hi has 373 bad reports on the Better Business Bureau Web site and 11 separate business names listed in a complaint by the Federal Communications Commission from Aug. 19, 2003, for sending prerecorded commercial messages in unsolicited telephone calls.
Mile Hi did not return repeated calls.
While the sheriff's office said they were not sure why the company was collecting e-mail addresses, Allen said neighbors were reporting more unsolicited e-mails after using the Web site.
So far, investigators say the company has not broken any laws since the fliers did not use a person's name.
But residents say the fliers were unnecessarily inflammatory.
"The flyer was extremely vague and directed us to go to a Web site to find out more information," said Janet Grovenor. "My first thought was, 'What house just sold in my neighborhood?' The address that they listed on their flyer was basically a ploy to capture people's e-mail address so they could solicit them for business."
Susan Lee, a spokeswoman for the Denver/Boulder Better Business Bureau, said Mile Hi is frequently the subject of media calls.
"I look over this company's records every year and it's not new problems, just the same complaints over and over," Lee said.
Lee was unaware of a spike in calls related to the sex offender fliers. So far in September, 44 callers have requested information on Mile Hi.
"I'd need to see 200 calls to call anything a spike (in inquiries)," Lee said
Mile Hi dropped leaflets again Monday morning, after Selket told her story on two television stations. This time the fliers were for aeration services.
"Not much surprises me with Mile Hi," Lee said. "But if anything could surprise me with this company, this would. They have an astonishing disregard for their customers and they will laugh derisively at us when we call and ask them to work with a dispute."
Numbers provide Mile Hi with room to be so callous, Lee said.
"Why work with a complaint when they will have 400 more customers knocking on the door?" she said.
Lee said she has never heard of such a scare tactic from Mile Hi but does remember a bag and rock with a flier that was warning about fire danger. The associated Web site was about vacuum cleaners.
Douglas County Undersheriff Tony Spurlock said that such scams that are mining for information are around, but rare in the county.
"Usually those are companies offering free information but ask for e-mail addresses and other information," Spurlock said. "Once you do that they own you."
The closest scam was a company offering free information about radon gas. That company was simply collecting information.
"I don't know what this guy (Florian McCann, owner of Mile Hi services) is going to do with the e-mail addresses," Spurlock said.
If a sexually violent predator did move into the community, the sheriff's office would hold a meeting for the community. Registered sex offenders are not always actively disclosed to the community. For more run of the mill offenses, registration is all that is required, and the interested parties have to keep checking the unified sex offender list at www.dcsheriff.net.
The fliers also caused disruptions at Sand Creek Elementary school as calls from concerned parents flooded in.
"That also angers me, said Grovenor. "This is tying up police and the school, which need to be doing other things."
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