Tony’s Ortega’s Crusade of Untruth

When last we saw the Village Voice, they had just received a letter of complaint signed by three dozen religious leaders making an urgent impassioned call for an end to Backpage.

This was, of course, merely the tip of an already mammoth iceberg.

More than fifty Attorneys General had sent Village Voice Media a similar letter some months earlier, demanding that Backpage demonstrate exactly how and to what extent it was working to prevent children from being bought and sold on its online marketplace, the way Tony Ortega had falsely declared it did.

After all, it was an already an open secret that Tony Ortega — as we detailed last week — had been gaslighting America as to the truly horrific scale of Backpage’s scheme to traffic underage girls.

Backpage had been using children as bait for sex predators trolling through the scores of depraved “escort service” ads available on their platform for some time now. And Tony Ortega seemed to be on a personal mission to keep that truth hidden from the public.

Tony’s Ortega’s crusade of untruth would soon begin to unravel, however.

Even as The Village Voice Media was busy trying to respond to the clergy letter, the mayor of Seattle was announcing that his police department was in the midst of rescuing three young girls who had been sold via Backpage.

Add to that the fact that only a year earlier a 15-year-old girl sued Backpage for allowing her to be sold on their site. It was to be the first of many such lawsuits against the formerly untouchable sex cabal, Tony Ortega had bragged about being so proud to work for.

It was clear that change was on the horizon. There had been a new hope in the air ever since Craigslist was forced into compliance by the same sort of public pressure.

It is worth noting, however, that Craigslist closed its “Adult Services” page voluntarily when confronted publicly about the truth of their actions.

Backpage’s response to public outcry was something altogether different. As Tony Ortega explained in his own words, it was “extremists like us” driving the Backpage empire.

To take them down it was going to take a lot more pressure, as we shall see in our next installment.