Ortega’s Pals And The Pandemic of Child Sex Trafficking

Cyntoia Brown

The scourge of human sex trafficking Backpage unleashed on an unsuspecting world has yet to be resolved.

Though Tony Ortega’s child sex selling pals may have been apprehended and forced to await judgement for the part they played in the largest illegal prostitution racket this country has ever seen, the lasting impact of the full extent of their crimes – the ones Tony Ortega worked so hard to help them sanitize in the press – still continue to cause incalculable human suffering.

Take for instance the story of Cyntoia Brown, who was the focus of the 2011 documentary Me Facing Life: The Cyntoia Brown Story. Her case is renewing questions about how child sex trafficking victims are treated by the justice system.

Cyntoia Brown was locked up in a Tennessee prison for 15 years, after she was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery in the killing of a man who hired her as a prostitute when she was 16. Owing to outrage from the same anti-sex trafficking campaigners Tony Ortega once referred to as raving “hysterics” she was released from prison last year, following a commutation of her sentence by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam.

At trial, Brown’s lawyers argued she was a runaway who was raped, abused and forced into prostitution by a man known as “Kut Throat.” She was originally not eligible for parole until she turned 69.

Brown’s case is a particularly interesting one as it shines a light on how the criminal justice system treats child victims of sex trafficking who commit crimes. Each year, more than 1,000 children are arrested for prostitution in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Indeed, the same child advocates Tony Ortega would regularly disparage and smear in the cheap editorial sections of disreputable tabloids tell us that in many cases it is those children are the true victims. Having been abused at the hands of sex traffickers like the corporate bosses paying Ortega’s paycheck from their plush Backpage offices, often the victims would up being pushed into a life of crime themselves.

As documentary filmmaker Dan Birman, who produced a 2011 PBS documentary about Brown’s case, says if Brown were arrested today, her case would have a different outcome than it did in 2004.

Adding:

“If Cyntoia Brown were arrested today, she would not be charged as a prostitute. She would be considered a young girl who’s involved in sex trafficking. That means that a young girl who in past years might have been considered a prostitute, it isn’t so because they’re not making that choice, and the laws are reflecting this.”

This is only a glimpse of some of lingering damage Tony Ortega’s former professional associates continue to cause. Contrary to all the false and deceitful arguments Tony Ortega’s has made over the years, sex trafficking is anything but a consensual, victimless crime.

As we demonstrated in the past, the crimes perpetrated by Backpage have very real consequences. Tragically, far too many of those negative consequences are still being felt victims of Tony Ortega’s mob-boss pals.