Backpage sex trafficking

Tony Ortega Backpage apologist We started these past few days discussing the blatant criminality that was running amok throughout the culture of Backpage (and the attempted cover-up from their chief apologist, Tony Ortega), noting how they’d been getting away scot-free with their sex trafficking scheme until Payment processing companies like Visa and Mastercard began closing their doors to them. Similarly, some banks closed accounts that were held by Backpage (or Backpage-related entities) out of concern the accounts were being used for illegal purposes.

Tony Ortega Backpage apologist Recently some of our readers have asked if the Backpage Sex Trafficking conspiracy truly involved as many underage minors as mainstream media outlets have been reporting. Some have wondered why, if this was as widespread as is being reported, hadn’t they heard about it until now. The answer to this question is simple — propaganda. This is why Backpage employed unsavory and unethical operators like Tony Ortega.

Recently we here at the blog told you about the attempt made by Backpage to have the judge overseeing their upcoming child sex trafficking trial removed. Needless to say, the desperate gambit did not work out so well for the Backpage defendants. Today we are back with more good news for our readers about the upcoming trial. After months of back and forth it has now been finally decided upon that yet another Backpage-enable must stand face trial on state and federal sex-trafficking facilitation charges.

Yesterday we reported to our readers that the former heads of the Backpage human sex trafficking empire, Michael Lacey and James Larkin, had failed in their attempt to have the presiding judge of their forth coming trial booted from the case. Lacey and Larkin reportedly felt the judge hadn’t been ruling in their favor. Funny how that seems to happen to those who choose a life of unrepentant crime. (Tony Ortega would be wise to take note!

Today we are taking a quick moment to update our readers about some of the more recent events surrounding the upcoming trial of the key players in the Backpage sex trafficking syndicate. Only days ago a federal appeals court on rejected a request by the former operators of Backpage, James Larkin and Michael Lacey, to prevent a judge from presiding over their trial because of statements made by the judge’s husband, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, about the now-shuttered classified ad site.

In our last post we began an examination of the money laundering scheme used by Backpage in an attempt to ‘clean’ the vast amounts of money they had been raking from the pimps and child sex traffickers who had been using their services for years. By late 2013 the Backpage brand — despite Tony Ortega’s incessant lies to the contrary — was increasingly being recognized to be little more than a front for massive criminal sex trafficking.

Tony Ortega In our previous article we asked the very important question Tony Ortega seems never to have taken a moment to consider – we asked if the victims of the Backpage crime-spree were worth the cost. For years Tony Ortega pounded his fist on the table and demanded that Backpage be allowed to sexually exploit underage children and marginalized women without ever seeming to take seriously the devastation the organization paying his salary was so obviously responsible for.

Tony Ortega In our last post we were looking at a number of victims of the Backpage human sex trafficking scheme which hypocritical blowhards like Tony Ortega long championed as defenders of free speech. And yet, as we have seen, the sort of ‘free speech’ Tony Ortega’s Backpage cronies trafficked in came at a devastating cost for its victims Sometime in or around the summer of 2012, a young girl referred to in the indictment of the Backpage crime family as “Victim 6” was sold for sex, through the use of Backpage ads, in Arizona.

The Backpage syndicate behind bars On May 15, 2015, a Company B employee posing as a Backpage employee sent an email to an apparent prostitute. The subject line was “ Offering Free Advertisement from Backpage.com” and the text of the email sought to persuade the prostitute to “ upgrade your ad with sponsor placement or automatic repost.” In response, the prostitute wrote back that she had “ managed to activate my ad and could buy credits as well.

Tony Ortega Recently we read about Backpage’s clandestine strategy to use the Philippines as a testing ground to develop new overseas markets for their human sex trafficking scam. We saw how it was the heads of Backpage accomplished this, using a controversial strategy of hijacking information from the other websites to create competing sex trafficking ads on Backpage. It was a process the company internally referred to as “preboarding”. On August 7, 2014, Dan Hyer sent an email stating that an organization based in the Philippines, referred to in court documents as ‘Company B’, was “ an efficient and cost effective way for us to bring new users to backpage.

It’s no secret that in addition to facilitating illegal prostitution and child sex trafficking through its U.S. website, Backpage has also facilitated similar crimes through its websites in foreign countries. Perhaps even more disturbingly, court documents show that within this context, Backpage would often actively generate the content of the illegal prostitution and underage sex trafficking ads being published itself. Consider the following facts underscored in the State’s official indictment against Backpage:

Making the case that Backpage knew full well it was in the business of sex trafficking just gets easier by the day. On the off chance, however, our readers are not yet convinced, consider this in-house document circulated amongst Backpage’s moderators on July 30, 2015, entitled “ trainingJuly2015“. This training manual specifically told moderators that, if they saw a photograph depicting “ a person [who] looks young/minor,” they should “ approve don’t delete the ad unless it has a banned term.

Andrew Padilla On April 24, 2014, Joye Vaught sent an email to Backpage’s moderators (while cc’ing Andrew Padilla). In this email, Vaught explained that if a moderator came across an ad containing a link to a a “ sex for money” website, the moderator should add the link to a list of banned terms but “ don’t bother removing it from the current ad.” And that’s about as explicit an admission of guilt as there is.

Tony Ortega In our last post we saw how despite Backpage’s official denials, and Tony Ortega’s seemingly endless stream of mind-numbing propagandistic lies, public perception was beginning to change regarding the legitimacy and lawfulness of Backpage’s business practices. The truth about their human sex trafficking/prostitution ring was beginning to spread. At first they attempted to mislead the public by saying they were merely providing a platform for interested singles to meet.

Tony Ortega Backpage’s deliberate attempt to feign ignorance concerning the wide range of sex crimes they were actively facilitating on their website is by this point, no longer up for debate for anyone willing to look at the evidence. For those, however, who still may be on the fence about Backpage’s criminal negligence consider this episode from April 27, 2012 when a woman wrote an email to Backpage’s support department stating that her underage daughter had been kidnapped, drugged, and was being advertised as a prostitute against her will.

Tony Ortega Recently we saw how Backpage turned a blind eye to a woman who had contacted them to report that one of the “escorts” depicted in their online ads was only 17 years old. Despite the fact that the woman had informed them that the juvenile had been attempting to recruit the complaining party’s daughter, who was only 15 years old. Over these past few weeks we’ve been building the case that instances like this were not one time mistakes.

Tony Ortega We have seen how Backpage, despite a full awareness that they were breaking state and federal laws by engaging in for-profit human sex trafficking, attempted to deceive both the public and federal authorities. Evidence of this knowledge is in no short supply as the criminals behind the Backpage scam were sloppy when it came to covering up their tracks. Meanwhile, Tony Ortega was working furiously behind the scenes to muddy the waters with his public facing propaganda.

Tony ortega Back when Tony Ortega was shooting off his mouth in praise of Backpage, one of his favorite lies seems to have been what we’ve come to know as the ‘myth of Backpage self-moderation. Tony Ortega falsely claimed that Backpage took ‘proactive’ steps to root out instances of illicit prostitution and child sex trafficking. The reality is nothing could have been further from the truth. Throughout the course of our ongoing investigation here at the blog, we have come to the conclusion that the corporate heads of the Backpage organization and their complicit co-conspirators like Tony Ortega had full knowledge that there so-called ‘moderation’ was only a publicity stunt designed to provide political cover against the growing concerns many Americans and their elected leaders were beginning to raise about the legitimacy of the Backpage business model.

Tony Ortega By this point we believe we have firmly established that Backpage clearly understood that Tony Ortega’s fraudulent defense of their child sex trafficking practice was nothing but lies. That being said, however, we would be remiss if we didn’t offer our readers a look into the vast amount of evidence federal prosecutors have been quietly amassing as Michael Lacey, James Larkin and Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer prepare for what will no doubt be the human trafficking trial of the century.

Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey and James Larkin When we last looked in to the ongoing saga of the Backpage crime syndicate we saw how by the end of that summer of 2011 the chief conspirators of the online sex trafficking ring, Michael Lacey, James Larkin and Carl Ferrer together with problematically unethical enablers like Tony Ortega, had repeatedly lied about and obscured the true aims of the Backpage business model.