Montezuma County Booking Report Lookup

Montezuma County booking reports are public records held by the sheriff's office in Cortez in the Four Corners region of Colorado. The county has about 26,000 residents and covers a wide area of southwestern Colorado. Booking reports are created when someone is arrested and processed at the Montezuma County jail. The records document the person's name, the charges they face, the arresting agency, and when the booking took place. You can get these records by contacting the sheriff or by searching through Colorado's statewide criminal record tools that pull data from every county.

Montezuma County Sheriff Office

The sheriff's office in Cortez is where you go for Montezuma County booking reports. Their phone number is 970-565-8452. The sheriff runs the county jail and oversees all bookings. Deputies patrol the rural parts of the county while Cortez PD covers the city. Both agencies bring people they arrest to the Montezuma County jail for processing. So the sheriff's office holds all the booking records for the county in one place.

Montezuma County does not offer an online inmate search. This is typical for counties of this size in Colorado. If you want to know if someone is currently in the jail or if they were recently booked, you need to call. Give them the person's full name. A date of birth helps narrow things down if the name is common. The staff can check the jail management system and give you basic information about the booking.

For a full copy of the booking report with all the details, you might need to file a written records request. The sheriff's office can tell you how to do that when you call.

Statewide Search for Booking Reports

Colorado has tools that let you search for booking and arrest records without calling each county directly. The CBI Internet Criminal History Check is one of the best. It costs $6.85 and searches the entire state at once. You enter a name and date of birth, and the system returns matching arrest records from any Colorado county, including Montezuma. This is useful if you think someone might have records in more than one county or if you just want to see their full history across the state.

The VINE system at vinelink.com is free and focused on current custody status. Search by name, choose Colorado, and VINE tells you if the person is in jail right now. It covers Montezuma County and all other counties. You can also register for alerts. If the person gets released or transferred, VINE contacts you by phone, email, or text. The toll-free VINE number is 1-888-263-8463.

Here is the VINE search page that works for all Colorado counties including Montezuma County.

VINE is especially useful for family members who want to know when someone is released from the Montezuma County jail.

Note: VINE data updates at different speeds depending on the facility. There can be a short delay.

Records Laws for Montezuma County

Colorado's Criminal Justice Records Act makes booking reports available to the public. The law starts at C.R.S. § 24-72-301. It says that records of official actions by criminal justice agencies are open for inspection. Bookings are official actions. Under § 24-72-302, an arrest record must include the person's name, the charges, and the arresting agency at a minimum.

When you request a booking report from the Montezuma County Sheriff, they have 3 business days to respond. They can take up to 7 more days for large requests. The first hour of their time is free. After that, they can charge up to $41.37 per hour for research. Copies cost $0.25 per page. For a single booking report, the request is usually simple enough that there is no fee beyond the cost of copies. You will need to sign a form saying you will not use the records for direct business solicitation.

Booking Photos and State Records

Booking photos from the Montezuma County jail are public records. But Colorado law at § 24-72-305.5 makes it a crime to post a mugshot online and demand payment for removal. Fines go up to $1,000. You can still request a booking photo through the sheriff's office the same way you request any other record. The same fees and timelines apply.

If someone booked in Montezuma County ended up in state prison, the Colorado Department of Corrections offender search at doc.state.co.us/oss is the place to look. It shows current state inmates, their facility, sentence, and parole status. It is free. This is a different record from the county booking report but it picks up where the booking report leaves off in terms of tracking what happened to the person.

Note: Sealed booking records will not show up in any search tool, including CBI and VINE.

Nearby Counties

Montezuma County sits in the southwestern corner of Colorado. These neighboring counties each maintain their own booking records through their sheriff's offices.