Tony Ortega Remains Mute As Proof Of Backpage Bodycount Continues To Rise

Aaron Drumheller

Ortega continues his petulant silence on the subject as further evidence of Backpage’s bloody history continues to surface.

We’ve been saying this for so long now it’s starting to sound like a broken record. But then, Tony Ortega is not an individual known for having a varied history of creativity. He is, as the saying goes, a one track pony. And, disturbingly, much of his track seems to revolve around the ‘sex-for-cash with at-risk women and underage girls’ portal known as Backpage.

In our last post we reported to you how this past week a man in Texas had been sentenced to 40 years for the part he played as a minor pimp in the Backpage crime syndicate.

We now bring to your attention yet another judgement only against Backpage. This time it involves the case of a Virginia man who was also sentenced to 40 years — this time for multiple murders directly connected to the Backpage scheme Tony Ortega championed.

The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that a 24-year-old Petersburg, VA man, Aaron Drumheller, will spend nearly 40 years behind bars for killing two men in separate killings just over two years apart in Petersburg and Hopewell.

The first victim, 39-year-old Albert Freeman, was fatally shot on August 25, 2017, after authorities believe he was lured to a location in Petersburg to be robbed and struggled with one of his assailants. The second victim, 21-year-old Jaequan Johnson, was shot dead on August 29, 2019, in Hopewell during what authorities believe was a drug transaction that turned into a robbery.

In the Petersburg case, Freeman was killed during a period in the city when about 18 people reported being robbed after they responded to advertisements posted on Backpage related to the same “escort” ads Tony Ortega assured us time and again were completely harmless, despite repeated reports to the contrary since the company’s inception.

Prosecutors announced the damning link between Drumheller and his victims were through a series of ads created with Drumheller’s email address. The ads used fake photos of women who had sought Drumheller’s help in the past with computer problems, authorities said.

What is troubling to us in this case is just how much of this parallels Tony Ortega’s own behavior with regards to Backpage. The lies. The fakery. The opportunistic exploitation are all classic modus operandi of the former Backpage chief propagandist.

Tony Ortega may be opting to keep his mouth shut for legal reasons, but as further proof of the wide range of criminality Backpage made possible continues to pile up, so do the calls that those who helped legitimate it be called to account.